Senior Technical Engagement Manager

Redpanda Data; Oregon; Hybrid; USD 139,000 - 163,000; Full time

Job summary

Redpanda is seeking a Senior Technical Engagement Manager to lead a pod delivering high-stakes engagements with Forward Deployed Engineers. You’ll scope, plan, and execute multi-phase engagements aligned to customer business outcomes.

The role requires 8+ years in engagement management, PMP/ Scrum certification, and fluency in distributed systems. Travel to customer sites will be required; remote-friendly, enterprise-focused delivery.

Qualifications

• 8+ years in engagement management or delivery leadership for enterprise technology deployments.
• Certifications: PMP or Scrum.
• PM for engineering/services teams with agile delivery.
• Experience with formal risk and issue governance (RAID logs, steering committees).
• Comfort operating in politically complex executive environments.
• Technical fluency in distributed systems or data infrastructure.

Responsibilities

• Manage relationships with key stakeholders, internal and customer.
• Own and maintain project plans to ensure on-time delivery of outcomes.
• Serve as senior escalation point for customer and internal teams.
• Ensure pod projects are resourced and delivered per plan; raise risks.
• Push back on unrealistic timelines, scope changes, or risk items.
• Partner with Account Executives and Solutions Engineers on handover and scope.
• Build program playbooks and toolkits to drive repeatability and scale.

Skills

Engagement management

Agile delivery

Risk governance

Executive communication

Distributed systems

Stakeholder mgmt

Travel readiness

Delivery leadership

Education

PMP or Scrum

Tools

None

Job description

Redpanda is the first runtime and control plane for agent-data interaction — a unified platform that combines streaming, SQL analytics, and intelligent connectivity with the governance layer enterprise AI agents need in production.Built on infrastructure already trusted by Fortune 500 companies and fast-growing startups, Redpanda enforces governance entirely outside the agent's data path, controlling what agents see, limiting what they do, and capturing a tamper-proof record of everything they touch, so organizations never have to choose between innovation and control.Join our growing Customer Success Engineering organization as a Senior Technical Engagement Manager, leading a pod responsible for high-stakes engagements alongside our Forward Deployed Engineers.In this role, you'll drive strategic projects with customers as they implement our Agentic Data Plane. Working with large enterprises, you'll be responsible for scoping, planning, and executing multi-phase engagements aligned to business outcomes.

You Will:

• Manage relationships with key stakeholders, both internal and within our customers
• Own and maintain project plans to ensure ongoing delivery that drives agreed-upon outcomes
• Serve as the senior escalation point for both the customer and internal delivery teams on your accounts
• Ensure projects within your pod are resourced and delivered against plan, raising and escalating risk as required
• Establish the credibility and judgment to push back on inappropriate timelines, change in scope or risks to agreed-upon deliverables
• Partner with Account Executives and Solutions Engineers on the pre- to post-sales handover, confirming scope,timelines and success criteria are documented for a seamless kickoff
• Build out key program playbooks and toolkits to drive repeatability across engagements and enable scale.

You Have:

• 8+ years in engagement management, delivery leadership, or technical program/project management on complex enterprise technology deployments, ideally at a systems integrator (e.g., Deloitte, Capgemini, Accenture) or an enterprise software vendor
• Certifications: PMP or Scrum
• Proven experience as a PM for engineering or services teams focused on agile delivery
• Experience running formal risk and issue governance — risk registers, RAID logs, steering committees — with real influence over decisions
• Comfort operating in politically complex stakeholder environments, with the seniority to elevate to and negotiate with customer and internal executives
• Technical fluency in distributed systems, streaming, or data infrastructure (e.g., Kafka, Redpanda) sufficient to understand delivery and technical risk, without needing to write the code yourself
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, comfortable presenting to a CIO and negotiating scope with an SI delivery lead
• Flexibility to travel to customer sites for high-stakes engagements

U.S. base salary range for this role is $139,000 - $163,000, not including bonus and/or commission. Our salary ranges are determined by role, level, and location. As a remote-first company, we strive to consider each candidate's job-related skills, location, experience, relevant education or training to determine individual base salary. Your talent partner will share more about the specific salary range for your preferred location during the hiring process.

Join Redpanda if you'd enjoy being part of a fast-moving, diverse, people-first organization with team members around the globe and a culture based on trust, transparency, communication, and kindness. You'll dive into a nimble, high-impact team with the latest AI tools — and the budget to actually use them.