Interim Site Director — SaaS Engineering GCC Build

The mandate

The leader hired to launch an India engineering site departed after recruitment yield and workspace readiness missed the opening plan. Global teams still expect product components to transfer, but the site lacks engineering identity, local decision cadence and credible hiring priorities.

The interim must begin within three weeks for a fixed twelve-month assignment. Permanent site-leader recruitment starts when 350 employees and the first end-to-end component are in place, with six weeks reserved for transfer.

Handover is complete when at least 550 approved roles are filled to quality, three product domains hold accountable development and production support, employee regretted attrition meets the launch threshold, site controls operate, and the successor chairs one global portfolio review.

The interim may prioritise requisitions, select hiring partners, assign local engineering leaders and deploy ₹18 crore of launch spend. Expansion above the 650-role plan, lease change, permanent vice-president appointments, product transfer outside the approved domains and compensation-band exceptions above 10% require global approval.

Corporate product strategy, worldwide engineering restructuring and creation of a second India site are outside scope. The director must establish this centre as an accountable product location, not a general capacity pool.

Why this seat is open

The founding leader left before the site had enough mass or ownership to self-correct. Recruiters and global product heads optimise different parts of the launch. A temporary site director can turn approved positions into functioning teams while the steady-state role becomes attractive and defined.

What you will own

• Reprioritise the 650-role plan by product ownership, leadership dependency, scarce skills and launch sequencing.
• Decide hiring-channel allocation using qualified yield, time to productivity, diversity and fee economics.
• Select the three product domains that can transfer with architecture, backlog, support and decision authority intact.
• Establish local engineering and site governance with recorded global dependencies and escalation clocks.
• Build director and principal-engineer succession through assessed roles, charters and retention choices.
• Demonstrate accountable build-and-run ownership for three domains with stable quality and production response.
• Transfer workforce data, product charters, hiring commitments, culture measures and the next two-quarter plan to the permanent director.

Candidate qualifications

• Led an India engineering site, SaaS product unit or technology GCC at director level.
• Built product-engineering teams from launch to at least 500 people.
• Transferred end-to-end product ownership rather than only staffing global backlogs.
• Improved hiring yield and time to productivity in a constrained technology market.
• Established local leadership, culture and production accountability across platform and application teams.
• Managed global product and technology stakeholders through explicit decision boundaries.

Non-negotiables

• Available in Chennai within three weeks and present on site at least three days weekly.
• No current commercial tie to staffing or real-estate vendors bidding for the launch.
• Will not accept headcount as the sole measure of centre success.
• Must have held direct line authority over product engineering.

1. 49 words maximum. Confirm availability and disclose any staffing or SaaS competitor conflict.
2. 49 words maximum. Quantify an engineering site you built and the first product ownership transferred.
3. 49 words maximum. Which hiring metric best predicts six-month engineering productivity?