Delivery Manager

About Toptal

Job Summary

Responsibilities

Delivery Quality and Consistency

• Own the end-to-end delivery lifecycle to ensure consistent client satisfaction and revenue retention.
• Own end-to-end delivery execution for assigned projects and managed services, from kickoff through closure or transition to steady state, ensuring scope, schedule, and quality commitments are met.
• Build and maintain detailed delivery plans, milestones, and work breakdown structures, proactively managing risks, issues, and dependencies across distributed teams.
• Enforce standardized delivery methodologies, SLAs, and best practices defined by the Delivery Director and Practices, ensuring consistent execution across all engagements.
• Run recurring delivery ceremonies (stand-ups, sprint reviews, status calls, service reviews) and drive clear action ownership and follow-through.
• Monitor delivery KPIs (defects, rework, SLA adherence, CSAT, incident trends) and implement corrective actions and continuous improvement initiatives.

Client and Stakeholder Management

• Serve as the primary day-to-day delivery contact for client stakeholders for assigned engagements, fostering trusted relationships through clear, proactive communication.
• Prepare and lead regular client status and service review meetings, providing concise views of progress, risks, issues, financials, and improvement actions.
• Manage expectations and escalations in partnership with Delivery Directors and Account/Sales counterparts, ensuring transparent handling of challenges and trade-offs.
• Capture client feedback and translate it into concrete delivery improvements and opportunities for expanded value.

Financial Management

• Manage engagement-level financials within portfolio guardrails, including revenue realization, margin performance, and accurate forecasting for assigned projects and services.
• Track effort, burn, and utilization against plan; proactively adjust staffing, scope, and delivery approach to protect margins while maintaining quality.
• Ensure proper scope control and change management, identifying out-of-scope work and partnering with Sales and Delivery Directors to structure change orders.
• Support accurate and timely billing by validating deliverable sign-offs, timesheets, and milestone completions.

AI-enabled and Standardized Delivery

• Apply AI-enabled tools and automation (e.g., for planning, estimation, testing, monitoring, reporting) in daily execution, following standards and guardrails set by Delivery Directors and AI/Operations teams.
• Use data and analytics to inform delivery decisions, including forecasting, capacity planning, and early risk identification.
• Champion adoption of standardized playbooks, templates, and tooling to reduce variability, improve productivity, and enhance client outcomes.
• Provide feedback on AI-enabled and standardized processes to help refine and improve delivery practices over time

Team Leadership and Collaboration

• Coordinate and lead cross-functional teams (talent placement, consultants, engineers, SMEs) across multiple time zones to deliver against commitments.
• Provide day-to-day direction, prioritization, and coaching to team members, creating clarity on goals, roles, and expectations.
• Foster a culture of accountability, collaboration, and continuous improvement through retrospectives and data-driven learning.

Presales and Solutioning Support

• Partner with Sales, Presales, and Delivery Directors to provide delivery inputs to proposals, SOWs, and account plans, ensuring commitments are realistic and executable.
• Contribute to solution design with practical delivery approaches, plans, estimates, and risk assessments for new and expanding engagements.
• Participate in select client pre-sales discussions to represent delivery feasibility, delivery model options (project vs managed services), and implementation considerations.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

• On-time delivery and milestone adherence for assigned engagements.
• Engagement-level delivery margin and revenue realization against forecast.
• Client satisfaction scores and qualitative feedback for assigned projects/accounts.
• SLA and quality metrics (incident rates, rework, defect trends, uptime/service metrics where applicable).
• Delivery productivity metrics (e.g., hours saved, throughput, efficiency) driven by standardized and AI-enabled practices.
• Accuracy of forecasts (schedule, resourcing, financials) for owned engagements.
• In the first week, expect to:
• Onboard and integrate into Toptal; meet Delivery, Sales, Talent, and Operations colleagues.
• Learn about the company’s history, culture, service offerings, and delivery models (talent placement, professional services, managed services).
• Review delivery playbooks, tools, and governance frameworks used across engagements.
• In the first month, expect to:
• Build working relationships with Delivery Directors, Sales, PreSales, Practice Leads, and Talent Operations for your accounts.
• Shadow existing client engagements to understand current delivery approaches, financial models, and stakeholder expectations.
• Take ownership of selected workstreams or smaller engagements under guidance from a Delivery Director.
• In the first three months, expect to:
• Fully own day-to-day execution for a set of projects and/or managed services, including delivery plans, status reporting, and risk/issue management.
• Demonstrate consistent use of standardized delivery practices and tools, including AI-enabled workflows where available.
• Identify initial improvement opportunities in quality, process, or financial performance within your engagements while exercising discretion and independent judgment.
• In the first six months, expect to:
• Run a stable portfolio of engagements with predictable delivery outcomes, strong client feedback, and sound financial performance.
• Implement targeted optimizations in your engagements (e.g., better forecasting, resourcing changes, process improvements, automation).
• Serve as a go-to delivery partner for Sales and Delivery Directors on new opportunities within your client set.
• In the first year, expect to:
• Be recognized as a trusted delivery leader for your accounts, with strong client relationships and internal partnerships.
• Consistently achieve or exceed targets for on-time delivery, client satisfaction, and engagement-level margin across your portfolio.
• Contribute best practices, lessons learned, and feedback to help evolve delivery methodologies, tooling, and AI-enabled practices.

Qualifications And Job Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree is required.
• 7–10+ years of experience in Professional Services delivery, consulting, or related roles.
• 3–5+ years managing projects or services for multiple clients or workstreams, ideally in a global or distributed delivery environment.
• Proven track record delivering complex technology or professional services engagements with strong client satisfaction and predictable outcomes.
• Solid understanding of both project-based and managed services delivery models, including governance and SLAs.
• Hands-on experience with project/engagement financials (forecasting, revenue recognition basics, margin drivers, utilization, change control).
• Experience working with or implementing technology- and automation-led improvements in delivery; exposure to AI-enabled tools is a strong plus.
• Strong understanding of Professional Services fundamentals (SOWs, deliverables, risk management, change management, and commercial models).
• Excellent client-facing communication and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to simplify complex delivery topics.
• Detail-oriented, data-driven, and outcome-focused, with strong problem-solving and decision-making skills.
• Collaborative, empathetic team player who builds trust while driving accountability and clear ownership.
• Comfortable working through change and ambiguity while maintaining composure and client confidence.
• Outstanding written and verbal communication skills.
• Ability to work in a fast-paced, rapidly growing company and handle a wide variety of challenges, deadlines, and a diverse array of contacts.
• You must be a world-class individual contributor to thrive at Toptal. You will not be here just to tell other people what to do.
• For Toptal Use Only: #canada #europe #easterneurope #northerneurope #MEA

Job Details

About The Company

Report