Manager - Digital Production Automation

Academian India; Pune District; On-site; INR 1,800,000 - 2,600,000; Full time

Job summary

Academian India is seeking an experienced Manager, Digital Production Automation to lead multiple teams responsible for automating digital content production and publishing workflows.

The role emphasizes ownership, accountability, and proactive problem solving, with collaboration across technology, content production, and editorial teams. You will coach tech leads, drive delivery discipline, and scale automation across complex publishing pipelines.

Qualifications

• Experience leading multiple technical, automation, software engineering, or digital production teams.
• Strong people-management experience, incl. coaching and developing leaders.
• Accountability for delivery across multiple concurrent initiatives.
• Strong analytical, organizational, and problem-solving capabilities.
• Experience establishing planning, estimation, prioritization, and delivery-management practices.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Ability to operate effectively across technical and non-technical organizations.
• Diverse toolkit mentality with hardware/software knowledge.
• Strong understanding of scripting and workflow automation.
• Experience managing production-critical workflows or systems.

Responsibilities

• Lead 3-4 automation teams for digital content production, transformation, and publishing workflows.
• Coach and develop team leads to independently manage people, priorities, delivery, risks, and stakeholder relationships.
• Establish clear performance expectations and accountable communication across the organization.
• Create an environment where teams solve problems with minimal detailed instructions.
• Own delivery across a portfolio of automation initiatives, coordinating with project managers.
• Establish disciplined estimates, commitments, and progress tracking.
• Empower teams to identify risks and dependencies early for meaningful action.
• Drive issues and blockers to resolution, avoiding dependency on external decisions.
• Manage priorities and dependencies across teams and stakeholders outside Digital Production.
• Maintain visibility into capacity, WIP, commitments, and operational risks.
• Provide technical and operational leadership for automation supporting content production and publishing.
• Identify opportunities to reduce manual work, shorten cycle time, and improve quality and scalability.
• Ensure automation solutions are well-documented and maintainable.
• Build productive relationships with content, editorial, technology, product, and other stakeholders.
• Communicate status, risks, tradeoffs, and changes clearly and proactively.
• Foster a culture of trust, transparent execution, and reliable commitments.

Skills

People management

Delivery accountability

Analytical skills

Planning & delivery management

Communication skills

Cross-functional collaboration

Scripting & workflow automation

Digital production automation

Python

JavaScript

Node.js

Adobe InDesign

Tools

Python

JavaScript

Node.js

Adobe InDesign

Job description

Job Summary

Role Overview: We are looking for an experienced and highly motivated Manager, Digital Production Automation to join our team. This role leads multiple teams responsible for developing, operating, and continuously improving the automation that supports our digital content production and publishing processes.

The ideal candidate combines strong technical judgment with high professionalism, ownership, communication, and organizational discipline. This person does not simply manage projects or report status - they create an environment in which teams take accountability for their commitments, identify risks early, solve problems independently, and reliably deliver high-quality outcomes.

Success in this role requires the ability to collaborate effectively across multi-functional teams include technology, content production, and editorial.

The manager is accountable not only for delivery, but also for developing strong Tech Leads and engineers who operate with reasonable autonomy, good judgment, and a growing sense of ownership.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead 3-4 automation teams responsible for digital content production, transformation, and publishing workflows.
• Coach and develop team leads, building their ability to independently manage people, priorities, delivery, risks, and stakeholder relationships.
• Establish clear expectations for performance, professionalism, accountability, and communication across the organization.
• Create an environment in which team members are expected and empowered to solve problems rather than wait for detailed instructions.
• Own delivery across a portfolio of automation and content-production initiatives, collaborating with Project Managers across many initiatives simultaneously.
• Establish disciplined processes for analyzing work, developing realistic estimates, making commitments, and tracking progress against those commitments.
• Empower team members to identify and communicate risks, dependencies, and potential delays early enough for meaningful action to be taken.
• Drive issues and blockers to resolution rather than allowing teams to remain dependent on external decisions or interventions.
• Manage priorities and dependencies across teams and coordinate effectively with stakeholders outside the Digital Production organization.
• Maintain visibility into team capacity, work in progress, upcoming commitments, and operational risks without becoming dependent on excessive reporting or micromanagement.
• Provide technical and operational leadership for automation supporting digital content production and publishing.
• Identify opportunities to eliminate repetitive manual work, reduce production cycle time, improve quality, and increase scalability.
• Ensure automation solutions are well-documented/catalogued and maintainable
• Build productive working relationships with content, editorial, technology, product, and other business stakeholders.
• Communicate status, risks, tradeoffs, and changes in expectations clearly and proactively.
• Establish a culture of trust through transparency, predictable execution, and consistent follow-through on commitments.

Key Professional Characteristics

Core Professionalism. Demonstrates a high level of personal and organizational discipline. Communicates clearly, manages expectations proactively, honors commitments, and creates realistic plans based on thoughtful analysis rather than optimism.

Ownership. Takes accountability for outcomes rather than limiting responsibility to assigned tasks or organizational boundaries.

When obstacles arise, actively drives them toward resolution. Identifies available paths forward, engages the right people, escalates appropriately when necessary, and maintains ownership until the issue reaches a conclusion.

Creates the same expectation within the teams: engineers and team leads should be able to make progress independently, exercise sound judgment, and seek guidance when it adds value-not wait for fine-grained direction before acting.

Growth Mindset. Demonstrates genuine intellectual curiosity and a sustained desire to improve.

Actively develops new technical, operational, and leadership capabilities and expects the same orientation toward learning from the organization.

Treats mistakes, missed estimates, production problems, and unsuccessful approaches as opportunities for thoughtful analysis and improvement rather than blame.

Invests time generously in developing team members and believes that a managers success is reflected in the increasing capability, judgment, and independence of the people they lead.

Sound Judgment Pragmatism. Can make effective decisions with incomplete information and appropriately balance immediate pressures with long-term quality.

Challenges unnecessary complexity and focuses teams on solutions that produce meaningful business and operational outcomes.

Required Skills and Experience

• Demonstrated experience leading multiple technical, automation, software engineering, or digital production teams.
• Strong people-management experience, including coaching and developing other leaders or senior individual contributors.
• Demonstrated accountability for delivery across multiple concurrent initiatives.
• Strong analytical, organizational, and problem-solving capabilities.
• Experience establishing effective planning, estimation, prioritization, and delivery-management practices.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Ability to operate effectively across technical and non-technical organizations.
• Diverse base of technical experience with a toolkit mentality
• Strong understanding of scripting and workflow automation
• Experience managing production-critical workflows or systems where quality, reliability, and timely delivery are important.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with digital publishing, educational publishing, content production, or content operations.
• Experience managing automation teams working with digital content creation, transformation, and publishing workflows.
• Familiarity with structured content and data formats such as XML, DITA XML, JSON, CSV, HTML, and CSS.
• Familiarity with scripting and automation technologies such as Python, JavaScript, Node.js, or similar technologies.
• Experience with content management systems, publishing pipelines, or workflow automation platforms.
• Familiarity with Adobe InDesign, InDesign scripting, or automated print/digital publishing workflows is beneficial.
• Experience leading geographically distributed or partner-integrated engineering teams is beneficial.

Disclaimer: This job posting has been aggregated from external source. Role details, content, and availability are subject to change. Applicants are advised to confirm the latest information directly on the company website before applying.