DGM-Product Strategy & Solutions Architecture

Tata Communications Limited; Bengaluru; On-site; INR 3,200,000 - 7,000,000; Full time

Job summary

Tata Communications Limited seeks a Deputy General Manager to own a portfolio of strategic technology programmes—from network products to AI and federated network architectures. The role blends deep solutioning with broad collaboration across OEMs, hyperscalers, academia, and standards bodies.

The candidate will drive customer and partner engagements at CXO and board levels, translate technology strategy into commercial outcomes, and lead cross-functional teams to deliver measurable results.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Electronics & Communication, Information Technology, or related field; MBA/PGDM strongly preferred.
• 12–16 years of progressive enterprise network/AI/security experience with 4+ years in leadership roles.
• Demonstrated track record of multi-stakeholder collaboration and CXO-level engagement.

Responsibilities

• Architect end-to-end solutions for enterprise and carrier customers across connectivity, security, AI infrastructure, data platforms, and federated architectures.
• Own and drive a portfolio of strategic collaborations with OEMs, hyperscalers, academia, and standards bodies.
• Oversee AI workloads productization: requirements, governance, commercial readiness, and cost observability.
• Lead productization of federated, intent-driven network programs across multi-domain connectivity and security.
• Translate partner capabilities into deployable Tata Communications solutions with joint STACK design and proofs-of-concept.
• Maintain cross-functional alignment across Engineering, Architecture, Product, Sales, Legal, and Procurement.
• Drive strategy execution with dashboards and quarterly business reviews; focus on measurable outcomes.

Skills

Solution architecture

Strategic partnerships

AI productization

Federated networks

Cloud architectures

Education

Bachelor's/Master's in CS/EC/IT

MBA/PGDM preferred

Tools

Cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP)

Job description

We are looking for a Deputy General Manager who will own a portfolio of strategic technology programmes at Tata Communications, ranging across network products, AI solutions, security and trust, and emerging federated network architectures. The role is equally about deep solutioning and broad collaboration: the successful candidate will architect end-to-end solutions for senior internal stakeholders and enterprise customers, drive multiple high-impact strategic partnerships in parallel (OEMs, hyperscale's, academia, standards bodies, customer co-innovation), and translate Tata Communications' technology strategy into measurable commercial outcomes. The successful candidate will be equally credible in a customer CTO conversation, an OEM negotiation, an engineering design review, and a board-level update.

Key Responsibilities

1. Solutioning and Solution Architecture. Architect and orchestrate end-to-end solutions for enterprise and carrier customers across the full Tata Communications portfolio connectivity, security, AI infrastructure, data platforms, and emerging federated architectures. Lead deep technical discussions with senior management, customer CXOs, and Tata Communications' executive committee. Translate complex requirements into deployable architectures with clear commercial and operational implications.
2. Strategic Collaborations and Partnership Portfolio. Own and drive a portfolio of high-impact strategic collaborations across multiple counterpart types:
   • OEMs and technology vendors evaluation, onboarding, joint roadmaps, joint go-to-market.
   • Hyperscalers (AWS, Azure, GCP) — joint solutions and integrated offerings.
   • Academic institutions — research collaborations with the IITs, IISc, and international universities on emerging technology (quantum, post-quantum, AI, networking).
   • Standards bodies and industry consortia — ITU-T, ETSI, IETF, TM Forum, GSMA, and equivalent.
   • Customer co-innovation programmes — joint design and pilot engagements with strategic enterprise and carrier customers.

The candidate will manage several of these collaborations concurrently, set the strategy for each, negotiate technical and commercial terms, and drive them through to measurable outcomes.

1. Productization of AI Workloads. Oversee the productization of AI workloads — model serving, agentic systems, AI-augmented network and security operations, and customer-facing AI features — on Tata Communications infrastructure. Define product requirements, drive engineering execution, manage release governance, and own commercial readiness, including performance, observability, cost, and responsible-AI compliance.
2. Productization of Federated, Intent-Driven Network Programmes. Lead the productization of one or more flagship network programmes that couple multi-domain connectivity, security and identity, federated governance, and intent-driven orchestration across the underlay and overlay. Current programmes include Quantum-Safe Networking, intent-based and policy-driven network automation, SASE evolution, and federated network and data architectures across enterprise and carrier customers. The candidate will be expected to own one of these as the primary workstream while contributing to the others as their portfolio matures.
3. Solutioning Excellence with OEMs and Partners. Convert OEM and partner capabilities into deployable Tata Communications solutions: identify integration points, design joint solution stacks, lead proof-of-concepts, and drive the implementation lifecycle with partner and internal engineering teams. Ensure that partner relationships translate into customer-facing value rather than abstract MOUs.
4. Internal Cross-Functional Leadership. Build durable cross-functional alignment across Engineering, Architecture, Product Management, Sales, Marketing, Legal, Procurement, and Customer Success. Operate as a credible bridge between technical and commercial functions and as a senior-management-facing voice for the product portfolio.
5. Strategy Execution and Results Ownership. Translate organizational strategy into measurable outcomes. Maintain quantitative dashboards on adoption, deployment, revenue impact, customer satisfaction, partner health, and programmes execution. Drive quarterly business reviews and proactively unblock cross-functional dependencies. Operate with a clear “outcomes over activity” discipline.
6. Talent and Technical Leadership. Mentor solution architects, product managers, and engineering leads in your matrix. Set the bar for technical depth, customer empathy, partnership stewardship, and executive communication. Champion a culture of solutioning excellence and strategic clarity.

Required Qualifications

• Education: Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Electronics & Communication, Information Technology, or a closely related engineering discipline from a recognized institution. A management qualification (MBA, PGDM, or equivalent) is strongly preferred — the role explicitly requires a mix of computer-science depth and management acumen.
• Experience: 12–16 years of progressive experience in enterprise network products, telecom infrastructure, AI/ML productization, cloud platforms, or cybersecurity, with at least 4 years at a senior individual-contributor or leadership level driving cross-functional and cross-organizational initiatives.
• Technical depth in at least three of the following:
  • Networking and connectivity — SD-WAN, SASE, SR-MPLS / SRv6, intent-based and policy-driven network automation (e.g., RFC 9315 IBN, TMF921), streaming telemetry (gNMI / OpenConfig), programmable data planes.
  • Security, identity and trust — Zero Trust, identity and access management, federated identity (e.g., W3C DID and Verifiable Credentials), post-quantum cryptography, key and secret management.
  • AI/ML productization — model deployment, MLOps, agentic systems, observability, responsible AI.
  • Federated and decentralized data architectures — domain-oriented decentralized data ownership, federated data and policy governance, data-as-a-product thinking, policy-as-code.
  • Cloud and hyperscaler architectures — AWS, Azure, GCP; multi-cloud and hybrid-cloud connectivity; service mesh and microservice patterns.
• Demonstrated track record of:
  • Taking products from concept through commercial deployment at meaningful scale.
  • Driving multiple strategic collaborations in parallel — OEMs, hyperscale's, academia, or standards bodies.
  • Engaging at CXO level both internally and with enterprise customers.
  • Operating in a matrixed, multi-stakeholder environment.

Preferred Qualifications

• Exposure to federated data and policy architectures, decentralized data ownership models, or domain-oriented data platforms.
• Familiarity with intent-based networking standards (RFC 9315, TMF921), service-mesh patterns applied to network functions, or programmable data planes (P4 / eBPF).
• Familiarity with Quantum-Safe Networking, post-quantum cryptography, or QKD.
• Hyperscale partnership experience (AWS, Azure, GCP) at the product-engineering level.
• Established relationships with global networking, security, or AI OEMs.
• Active participation in standards bodies or industry consortia.
• Academic-industry collaboration experience (joint research programmes, sponsored research, joint publications).
• Industry recognition through patents, peer-reviewed publications, standards contributions, or conference talks. Behavioral Competencies
• Self-motivated — operates with high agency across multiple parallel workstreams; does not require oversight to make progress.
• Strategy-driven — translates ambiguity into clear, executable plans across diverse programmes.
• Results-oriented — committed to measurable outcomes over activity.
• Executive communication — credible and concise with senior leadership, OEM executives, customer CXOs, and academic principals.
• Partnership stewardship — builds and sustains long-term collaborative relationships with external counterparts.
• Stakeholder management — earns trust across engineering, product, sales, partners, customers, and standards / academic communities.
• Intellectual curiosity — actively tracks emerging technology (AI, post-quantum, 6G, federated architectures, agentic systems) and brings external insight back into the organisation.
• Comfort with ambiguity — thrives at the intersection of new technology, evolving markets, and multi-counterparty dependencies.