About this Senior Associate Technical Consultant | Cloud & Platform Engineering role at Thinkahead
Join AHEAD's Rapid Solutions Team as a Rapid Solutions Pod Lead, a role that spans engagement leadership, people leadership, client delivery, and offering development. You will be the primary point of accountability for every engagement in your pod, from the first client conversation through the executive readout, owning scope, governance, cadence, and outcomes. You will also lead a small pod of engineers, setting their goals and coaching their growth, so the team behind each engagement is as strong as the engagement itself. Beyond delivery, you will own the evolution of the Rapid Solutions offering, refining the playbooks, templates, and delivery standards that keep the practice repeatable and scalable.
This role sits within AHEAD's AI & Cloud Practice, so engagements center on helping clients modernize and optimize across multi-cloud platforms, platform engineering, and AI-driven solutions. You'll bring that focus to bear on every Rapid Assess and Rapid Solutions engagement your pod delivers.
Roles and Responsibilities:
2+ years of relevant experience in:
Engagement Leadership
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Own every engagement end to end as Engagement Lead, from kickoff through executive readout, serving as the primary customer point of contact and the single point of accountability for delivery.
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Own scope and SoW compliance: set success criteria, manage change control, and keep stakeholders aligned on outcomes and boundaries.
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Run governance and cadence: standups, status reporting, stakeholder and steering reviews, RAID management, and decision logs.
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Act as the escalation point for engagement risk, resolving issues before they threaten scope, timeline, or the client relationship.
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Drive quality control through peer reviews and readiness checks on all client-facing deliverables.
People Leadership
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Lead a 2-3 person pod, planning and executing work across discovery, analysis, and executive readout, and ensuring each engagement has the right people staffed against it.
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Set quarterly and annual goals for pod members and provide structured coaching and feedback to support their growth.
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Staff and manage utilization across sold and internal projects, forecasting needs and maintaining delivery rhythm.
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Maintain engagement hygiene: risks, decisions, and artifact version control.
Solution Delivery
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Drive technical discovery and analysis across multi-cloud (AWS/Azure/GCP), platform engineering, identity, networking, security, and app/data domains.
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Produce prioritized recommendations with effort sizing and a sequenced roadmap.
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Translate findings into executive-ready narratives tied to business outcomes.
Standards, Tooling & Reuse
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Implement AI-driven solutions to reduce toil and accelerate insight.
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Capture and evolve collateral (questionnaires, scoring rubrics, readout templates) and fold it into the Rapid Solutions playbook for consistent delivery.
Practice Development & Offering Evolution
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Define and refine Rapid Solutions offerings: own the playbook, templates, and delivery standards, removing ambiguity and ensuring repeatability.
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Partner with practice leaders to align Rapid Solutions standards with broader AHEAD delivery frameworks and cross-practice initiatives.
