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Niharika - Technical Program Manager

[email protected]

Location: Austin, Texas, USA

Relocation: yes

Visa: H1B

PROFILE SUMMARY - Experience of 11+ years as Technical Program Manager, Project Manager and in Software Development, leading, managing and delivering multiple R&D initiatives. Including projects for ERP, AI & ML projects, cloud, and web application-based products in HR and Finance domain. Certified Agile Project Management Professional with a proven record of accomplishment of managing projects in multiple technologies, functions, and industries, across different time zones and countries. Extensive experience in SDLC, ITSM, AI & ML, DevOps, Cloud, CI/CD, System Analysis & Design, Project Design & Project Architecture. Proficient in Information & Data Management, Cost Control, Scope & Time Management, Quality & Performance Management, Business Process Improvement, expertise in implementation of IT projects using Agile Project Management methodologies. Identifying areas for continuous improvement and managing/liaison with vendors for implementing products to improve business efficiency. Expertise in application development with full lifecycle implementation of large data driven projects with determining the scope, requirements, and risks. Ability to work with scrum teams to develop project plans, roadmaps and manage the product (feature) backlog. Demonstrated effective Project Management skills through the development of project plans, resource allocation, plan execution, consistent communications with project team members and stakeholders, status reviews and delivery of agreed upon results. Experience using a Scrum Agile process- Organized and facilitated project planning, daily stand-up meetings, Sprint reviews, Sprint retrospectives, Sprint release planning, demos, and other Scrum meetings. Ability to deal with unstructured, complex Projects and Programs that required effective communication and negotiation skills to define and gain agreement on appropriate actions. Delivered cost-effective, high-quality Projects and Programs on-time through application of PM guidelines, standards (best practices) and effective controls while meeting requisite compliance requirements. Proficient in using Project Management & Requirements Managements tools such as JIRA, Confluence, GNATT Charts, Kanban, Scrum, XP, MS Project, MS Visio, Word, and Excel. Proficiency in elaborating the Use cases, writing Test cases, and preparing Requirement Traceability Matrices (RTM), RAID, ROAM, System design and technical documents. Led projects end-to-end from conceptualization through execution including business definition, feasibility & optimization, capacity planning and implementation of small- & large-scale projects for high profile clients. Over the years, have been a strong champion of the art of being an intersection of technology, design & business. Highly professional in working with cross teams, confront problems, proposing unanimous solutions and take ownership through to resolution and ensure a clear hand-off. Motivated team player with excellent communication, presentational and interpersonal skills. Willing to work in challenging and cross-platform environment. TECHNOLOGY SKILLS PM Tools & Methodologies: JIRA, GANTT Charts, Smartsheet, Slack, Confluence, Kanban, Scrum, XP, MS Project, MS Visio, Microsoft Project, MS Server, MS 365, MS Office, Word, Excel, PowerPoint. Agile Project Management & Delivery, Business process improvement, Project Management, Leadership status updates, Integrations, Software Development, Information Security, Disaster Recovery, Application Development, Scope Management and Escalation management. Scrum Ceremonies: Experience in facilitating Daily scrum call, Refinement meeting, Sprint Planning meeting, Sprint Review, Sprint Retrospective, SAFe Framework. ERP Applications: Kronos (Time & Attendance), People Soft, Workday, Oracle Financials (AP, AR, GL, SCM). Languages: SQL, Java, Python, Oracle 11g/9i/8i/8.x/7. /6.0 Technologies: AWS, S3, SNS, SNQ, JSON Script, IMAP/POP3 server configuration, API Gateway, Microsoft Azure, MigrationWiz for Office 365. AI/ML, UML (Unified Modelling Language), Statistical Modelling, Algorithms based on data, ML Workflows, A-to-Z app. Experience in PI Planning meeting, Creating RTM, RAID and ROAM documents, writing FDD, TDD, User Stories and Requirements documents, COE (Correction of Errors), Issue Log maintenance, Dashboard updates to stakeholders, and getting their confidence votes. Employer Amazon.com Services Seattle, WA Jul 17 May 23 Role: Technical Program Manager & IT Application Analyst II Work Profile: Technical Project Management, Application Analyst II, Product Launches and Deployment, System Development, Integration & Design. Developed project road maps, managed project budgets, resource planning and oversee cross functional teams across orgs. Implementing ML solutions, ERP technologies, monitoring and control and optimize their performance using JIRA, Atlassian, Confluence, Kanban, Scrum Agile Project Management Methodologies. Collaborate with data engineers, data scientists, BI Developers, cloud architects to deliver ML-based systems for cloud and edge applications. Supervise teams configuring robust environments handling the secure connection to data systems and enabling ML workflows and teams implementing, CI/CD pipelines to automate the quality assurance and continuous delivery of new functionality to ML solution users. Apply Agile Project Management methodologies (Scrum, Kanban, XP) to increase AI/ML development team s maturity and maintain and iterative cadence. Familiarity with systems management concepts, system design, processes, and standards; capacity and performance management and tuning; storage and data management with employee data for more than a 1.5 million employees database. Managed program and Time Off, LOA (Leave of Absence) program for 10+ countries where Amazon has its footprint. Preparing and updating Project Management documents like SOW (Statement of Work), PMP (Project Management Plan), WBS (Work Breakdown Structure), and Pre-Transition & Transition Check List. Collaborate with Software Development, Quality Assurance, Customer/Stakeholders and Dev-Ops teams on reverse engineering on product and system design by working backwards from customer feedback and data points. Proactively identify risks and issues on projects - leading team to develop risk management, project logistics, performing RCA s (Root Cause Analysis) and COE s (Correction of Errors) along with issues and future management plans, and writing RAID, ROAM logs. Worked with cross functional teams by providing project testing feedback on feature gaps, methodology flows, installation, delivery and assessment on product readiness, deployment, post-deployment, enhancement, and installation. Supervised teams creating Unified Modeling Language (UML) diagrams such as Use Case Diagrams, Sequence Diagrams, Class Diagrams, and Activity Diagrams. Developed web-based applications for Kronos using JAVA as the front end and SQL database as the back- end functionality. Organized internal team meetings, scrum sessions, to track project development schedules, address critical escalations, drive go/no-go decisions, assessing pilot launches and deployment readiness. Participate in Quality Assurance test phases & meetings including (Development, SIT, UAT, Regression, Pilot Launches, Deployment, Post Deployment Issues) and other stages. Communicating status and updates to the leadership. Creating dashboard reporting and ad-hoc reports for management to make the decision-making process easier. Ability to co-ordinate with a diverse set of business customers and drive consensus when conflicting requirements are identified. Performed fit-gap analysis in the existing design and gave solutions for enhancement to the full life cycle of the workflow, designed operational strategies, involved in data management and invoice management solutions. Function as a Subject Matter Expertise to develop deep knowledge of recruiting, interviewing, and onboarding selected candidates. Providing solutions utilized by Amazon, advise the business on global requirements and best practices for optimizing the use of these systems. Managed & handled complex projects in all life cycle stages of SDLC, including research, planning sessions for troubleshooting, fixing bugs on tasks before pushing to production in an agile environment. To build and implement processes for test planning and execution. Monitor the progress ensure no defects are released into production. Coordinate the rollout of new tools and systems including delivery of workflow diagrams, training materials and post-launch support resources to all the stakeholders involved. PROJECT: Launch of A-to-Z application using AI & ML workflow (USA Amazon employees), later the app was launched to 5 other countries. Amazon A to Z application was designed to give the Amazon employees access to all the tools to manage their work-life at Amazon. The app manages the user profile information, submit time off requests, check schedules, claim extra shifts, see the latest news, check time off balances and more. With the A-to-Z app tool, the employees could also see their records of time worked, job opportunities within and outside the organization, pension plans, retirements benefits, stock options, bonuses granted etc. The tool used various AI & ML models and chat bot to drive data and user interaction to identify & analyze the data requirements for the application to best serve the users. I worked as a TPM for the project and my role was to bring together all the different teams, product, customers, development, and stakeholders to create a project plan, vision road map, and timelines to launch A to Z app for Amazon US employees across all the US States. The app was to be launched on mobile, desktop, iPad and other screen friendly output sources like Kronos clocks and meters. Manage and plan for 150+ vendors, teams, and stakeholders across product, legal, HR, development, Quality Assurance Finance and Audit teams. Led, initiated over 10 different project teams across the organization and project budget, financing, and resourcing in millions. Drive the digital transformation by working with users and business stakeholders to support technical decisions, define requirements and to collect their feedback to maximize the value for the business units. Collaborate with data engineers, data scientists, BI Developers, cloud architects to deliver ML-based systems for cloud and edge applications. Supervise teams configuring robust environments handling the secure connection to data systems and enabling ML workflows and teams implementing, CI/CD pipelines to automate the quality assurance and continuous delivery of new functionality to ML solution users. Design, develop operational chat bot, AI & ML workflows including the development and execution of roll- out strategies, cut-over transition plans, end-user training and support and user documentation. Share knowledge with the team and the broader AI community and provide user support and problem solving. The successful implementation of A-to-Z app resulted in launching in 5 other countries: Poland, UK, Spain, Canada & Mexico. This led to the development of existing AI features to launch in different languages and thus I was involved in leading and driving the innovation within the Chatbot (Amazon Lex Automation tool). Partner with engineers across speech recognition, NLP, data & design to build requirements, define scope and effectively manage the delivery of AI-powered features on a quarterly basis. Track and measure the success of AI launched features in terms of user adoption and revenue. Defined and executed the roadmap and strategy resulting in an increase in 20% user interaction and thus resulting 37% decrease in customer service response time. Partnered with product marketing and stakeholders to successfully drive user demos, customer facing meetings including in house development, QC, and sales/business teams. Drive meetings with senior and principal architects, product owners in build and design of the demographic feeds to Amazon internal system with the required data using AWS SNS notifications in JSON format and csv files in S3 bucket. Supervised projects where the development teams, built adapters to Kronos and PeopleSoft applications to publish and subscribe JSON messages to AWS SNS & SQS to various integration systems with A-to-Z app. Experience in managing CI/CD integrations with AWS and other internal Amazon tools, web services and legacy systems. Co-ordinating with different HR and Legal teams on the implications of time off, pay rates, Overtime, vacation, and other pay off policies to make sure that the system is complied with regional and country labor laws and policies. Overseeing end to end implementation of the A-to-Z tool with other internal and legacy systems also external vendor systems and platforms. Led meeting into extensive testing phases, pilot launches, user demos, issue tracking, bug fixes, enhancements and developing new tools and focusing on agile methodologies. PROJECT: Launch of Fulfilment Center at (Canada, Quebec). Amazon was launching a new fulfillment center at Canada, at its Quebec province the year 2020. The plan was to open fife new fulfilment centers that employed 1000 employees and ramp up to 5000 by 2023. The facility has 520,000 sq. ft of space with sorting centers, delivery spaces, packaging, and distribution centers. For the 1000 employees that would be working in the new fulfilment centers, would need be entered in Kronos applications clocks and other ERP technologies like Workday, Oracle Payables and ADP to record the employees punch in and punch out and time keeping and recording of balances. I was responsible for managing the roadmaps for the new launch of fulfillment centers and the integration of HR applications with Kronos clocks and designing the HR time keeping system tool with other Amazon internal tools and applications. Manage and plan for 80+ vendors, supervisors, FC Managers, and vendor integrations for the 5 new FC centers. Work with Senior SDE s, to evaluate design options and drive decisions to finalize & document the integrations architecture. Consult with product owners and development teams to accurately estimate and plan upcoming project deadlines, launch dates, testing plans, user demos leading to highly effective agile development cadence. Attended design sessions organized by product teams, developing, DevOps, Quality Assurance Teams of 100+ stakeholders to gather requirements and design the business launch and processes. Track and report project status on a weekly basis to be reviewed during PMO meeting and define reports to leadership. Built strategy documents for implementations and planning and execution to review with senior leadership including associated costs and resource requirements. Follow and execute projects as Scrum Master using Agile Implementation Methodology (Backlog grooming, Sprint planning and execution, daily stand ups, close interactions across technology teams, customers, end users, driving retrospective and lessons learned reviews. Work with different teams to come up with clear scope and ownership of implementation tasks. PROJECT: AWS Investments, Private Pricing and Approval Workflow Platform. Amazon wanted to build an investments and pricing platform and I was responsible for managing the program for AWS Sales and pricing team. The project also initiated several change management programs that involved the change to a new mailbox server following the acquisition and merger of third-party vendors integrations to Amazon subsidiaries. As many of the vendors and subsidiaries use M365, along with the pricing strategies, the project involved migration from AWS Work mail to M365. My role was to manage, make project timelines and co- ordinate the AWS Sales Team to onboard new customers by organizing promotional events and to provide private pricing and change management. Manage and plan for 25+ vendors, teams, and sales team across finance, audit, sales, AWS teams. Migrate the sales information (mails, schedules, documents, archives, licenses, plans) using the MigrationWiz for Office 365. Led the meetings with the team for Office 365 licensing plan, preparing CSV files for data/user migration lists, assigning licenses to users, IMAP/POP3 server detail configuration, determining the right message sizes and limits, supervising the launch to maintenance of hierarchy and email properties. Led the design of the program that hosts approval workflow configurations and execution of business processes to minimize the turnaround time for manual intervention. Lead technical design and review meeting with Principal engineers, Sales team for integration of investment platform with credit program owners to generate promotional codes for new startups. Identify dependencies and potential blockers and align timelines and scheduling with dependent teams to minimize impact on delivery timelines. Integrated item definitions and promotional codes with third party web services. Led and managed sprint ceremonies by running sprint planning, demos, daily stand ups, grooming and retros. Client - Getty Images Seattle, WA Feb 13 Jun 17 Role: Technical Project Manager /Oracle Financials Consultant Project: Implementation and Testing Project: Business Process Improvement Project: Concur Implementation Project: PayPal and Payoneer Integration Entrusted in Program Management roles for my clients, have partnered with Senior Leadership and Managers, iterating on Strategies, Organization design, & Re-engineering business processes to better enable teams to define and deliver products using Agile and Scrum Startup principles. Delivered Business Process Improvement Plan & Impact Analysis on ERP technologies, Concur AP Integration and PayPal Payoneer Integration projects. Worked with process teams to ensure that new design elements are being appropriately communicated to the organization and effectively incorporated into end user training content. Involved in documenting the current complex process and suggesting solutions for enhancement, thus reducing man hours. Integrated Concur Expense and Invoice with AP Module, streamlined AP Invoice Import workflow and suggested short term/long term solutions, working alongside with Technical Teams, and raising and monitoring Oracle SRs. Having significant, progressive experience in Information-Technology Consulting, Business Analysis, focusing on Oracle Applications End-End Implementations, Upgrade, Re-implementations, and Custom developments. Proficient in writing technical documents, PRFAQ s, process and functional documents related to projects. Proficient in producing deliverables such as Functional Requirement Definition documents, Use Case Realization documents, MD050 and FDD for Oracle Financial Modules and Kronos Time & Attendance modules. Developed SQL queries against Oracle tables to troubleshoot, generate metrics, and create ad-hoc reporting as needed. Experience with low-level ad-hoc query tools (Toad, SQL Plus) and a detailed working knowledge of SQL queries and Oracle tables. Implemented ticketing system to take care of day-to-day production issues raised by end users in Concur and Oracle payables. Delivered Internal webpage for centralize reporting which was used by 5K users of Getty Images worldwide. Developed metrics to track the issues in different reports which gave information to business as to which Oracle modules and functionalities have more issues. The reports helped enhancement list which was worked by development team to reduce the functionality issues. Facilitated weekly leadership calls to report teams performance on production support and to get their feedback on the improvement areas. Designed and developed a new service for automatically downloading and processing renewal transactions for workers compensation application. Collaborated with and managed the existing application. Employer: Unisys Corporation - Bangalore, Amsterdam, Blue Bell May 06 Dec 07 Role: Project Management & Oracle Senior Associate Consultant Project: Global System Administration Program (GSA) Worked on interface processes and integration development in AR and GL for APAC region. Involved in troubleshooting issues on Auto Invoice Import Program. Raised Service Request (SR) for critical issues and resolved in short time span during month ends for AP, AR, and GL. Contributed to the Organizational Change Management with respect to Life Cycle Management primary focus and Responsibility as in: (a) Improving ERP functionality and user satisfaction. Having led many ERP module implementations and received excellent feedback from the implementation team and management (b) Manage and coordinate all testing across financials domain (c) Aligning the testing to lessen the impact to the business Operational Excellence teams (d) Working closely with all leads on the projects and leveraging opportunities and automated testing available with the SDET teams and the Delivery Assurance (DA) & QA (Quality assurance teams). Logged, viewed, accessed, monitored, followed up, and closed Service Requests (SR) online CQSR, Oracle Meta Link. Completed Multi-Org configuration by creating a new Organization Structure for Unisys by creating new Business Group, Legal Entity and Set of Books & Operating Unit. Delivered migration of Global GL to Local GL. Developed project plan, involved in requirements gathering, reported gap analysis and the solution to business and completed migration successfully. Developed Multi org Organization model, data security by application, cross-organizational reporting. Generated an interfacing program for transferring Data from legacy system to implemented system, using SQL Loader Script & Toad. Co-ordinate with IT Team and DBAs to make sure that all the database Concurrent requests run within appropriate time span and reporting. Handled status calls with Support Teams for requirement gathering and providing solutions for critical month end processes, involving AR, GL period close. Formed, maintained, and tracked agile team performance and deliverables. Socialized with project sponsors and business partners to ensure leadership engagements. Developed and implemented improved processes and practices by collaborating with development teams, product owners and business partners. Conducted project impact assessments and successfully coordinated with all stakeholders to implement project deliverables. 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