Site Manager (First office in India)

Arango; Hyderabad; Hybrid; INR 4,000,000 - 7,000,000; Full time

Job summary

Arango is establishing a new India office in Hyderabad. As Site Manager you will be the boots-on-the-ground leader responsible for launching and daily management of the subsidiary, bridging global HQ with the local market, and overseeing office leasing, HR compliance, and initial engineering scaling.

You will manage vendor relationships, ensure payroll compliance, and recruit core engineering teams, while aligning with Arango’s global standards and local regulations for a successful market entry.

Qualifications

• 10+ years in operations or engineering management.
• 5+ years in a leadership role within the Indian software/tech industry.
• Experience setting up a foreign entity's first office in India (zero to one).
• Deep familiarity with Indian labour laws, MCA filings, GST/Taxation.
• Fluent in English and a local regional language with strong negotiation skills.

Responsibilities

• Oversee infrastructure & office setup, including lease, IT procurement, and vendor management.
• Lead HR operations, compliance, payroll, and adherence to Indian labour laws.
• Partner with HR/Finance to implement local policies and employee handbook.
• Recruit and onboard core engineering teams in India, from sourcing to onboarding.
• Provide high-level management for the engineering site and align with global HQ.
• Serve as the primary liaison for the India site with global leadership and budget reporting.

Skills

Leadership

Project management

Negotiation skills

English proficiency

Regional language

Education

MBA or relevant business degree

Job description

About ArangoDB

Arango makes your business data AI-ready, giving agents, apps, and assistants trusted context at scale. Every answer is traceable. Every decision is governed. No more stitching together a vector store, a graph database, a search index, and a governance layer added as an afterthought. Arango’s Contextual Data Platform has it all built in, not bolted on.

Site Manager

About ArangoDB

Arango makes your business data AI-ready, giving agents, apps, and assistants trusted context at scale. Every answer is traceable. Every decision is governed. No more stitching together a vector store, a graph database, a search index, and a governance layer added as an afterthought. Arango’s Contextual Data Platform has it all built in, not bolted on. Trusted by organizations including NVIDIA, HPE, Zscaler, the London Stock Exchange, the U.S. Air Force, NIH, Siemens, and Articul8, Arango helps enterprises move from AI pilots to reliable production systems faster while lowering infrastructure complexity and total cost of ownership. Arango is a proud member of the NVIDIA Inception Program and the AWS ISV Accelerate Program. Stop building Frankenstacks. Start building with Arango. Learn more at arango.ai. We believe great innovation happens when curious, driven people collaborate. We are committed to building a diverse and inclusive team and supporting our employees and interns as they learn, grow, and contribute to shaping the future of enterprise AI.

Location: Hyderabad, India (new office), hybrid.

Reports to: CPO.

Role Overview. As the founding member of the new India office, you will be the "boots on the ground" responsible for the successful launch and daily management of our new Indian subsidiary. You will bridge the gap between our global headquarters and the local Indian market, managing everything from office leasing to HR compliance and the initial scaling of our engineering team.

Key Responsibilities

• 2. Infrastructure & Office Setup
• Identify, negotiate, and execute lease agreements for a modern, scalable office space in a strategic location in Hyderabad.
• Coordinate with the IT department for the procurement of hardware, high-speed networking, security systems, and office furniture to create a "day-one ready" environment.
• Select and manage local vendors for housekeeping and facility maintenance.
• HR Operations & Compliance
• Partner with HR and Finance departments for local HR policies, an employee handbook, and payroll that complies with Indian labor laws (EPF, ESI, Gratuity, and TDS).
• Ensure 100% compliance with the POSH (Prevention of Sexual Harassment) Act requirements and local leave policies.
• Partner with global leadership to recruit the core engineering team, managing the end-to-end process from sourcing to onboarding.
• Engineering Management & Leadership
• Act as the local cultural ambassador, aligning the India site with Arango’s global teams while respecting local nuances.
• Provide high-level management for the engineering site, ensuring project timelines and quality standards are met during the transitional phase.
• Serve as the primary point of contact for the global HQ, providing regular progress reports on setup milestones and budget spend.

Skills and Experience

• Experience: 10+ years in operations or engineering management, with at least 5+ years in a leadership role within the Indian software/tech industry.
• Proven track record of setting up a foreign entity's first office in India from "zero to one".
• Deep familiarity with Indian labor laws, MCA filing processes, and GST/Taxation frameworks.
• Exceptional project management skills and the ability to work autonomously in a high-pressure, "startup" environment.
• Fluent in English (both written and spoken) and the local regional language, with excellent negotiation skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• MBA or a professional degree in Business Management.
• Experience in an "Engineering Manager" or "Technical Program Manager" capacity within a SaaS or software development firm.

What Makes Arango Special?

At Arango, we believe that AI is only as powerful as the data foundation. Our mission is to help organizations build AI systems that can reason, decide and act based on unified, current, and trusted business context at scale. We are helping define a new category of infrastructure: the contextual data layer for AI.

Working at Arango means:

• Contributing to cutting-edge AI and data infrastructure
• Collaborating with experienced engineers, marketers, and product leaders
• Helping shape how enterprises build AI-powered applications

If you're excited about the intersection of AI, data, and social media, we’d love to hear from you.