RAJENDRAN BALAKRISHNAN
Senior Program Director
Bangalore
Summary
Dynamic enterprise engineering leader with over 27 years of experience in building and scaling global engineering organizations across diverse domains, including software, embedded systems, cloud technologies, AI/ML, and digital platforms. Proven track record at Senior Director and Director levels includes managing $20M portfolios while delivering over $15M in annual cost impact, accelerating time-to-market, and fostering high-performance, multi-layer teams. Renowned for driving startup-like agility within enterprise governance frameworks, leveraging strong financial acumen and customer-driven product strategies to achieve measurable business outcomes. Expertise in professional program management encompasses leading complex projects, enhancing team collaboration, and adapting to evolving needs through strategic planning, resource allocation, risk management, and stakeholder engagement.
Overview
28
28
years of professional experience
5
5
Certifications
3
3
Languages
Work History
Senior Program Manager Director
Ness Technologies
05.2021 - 01.2026
- Engineered high-performance global delivery organizations across strategic enterprise accounts (Syndigo, SAP, Pfizer, Paypal), converting delivery excellence into recurring revenue growth and multi-year client retention.
- Designed and operationalized Offshore Development Centers (ODCs) as margin-accretive global hubs, optimizing cost structures, utilization models, SLA governance, and productivity benchmarks to enhance EBITDA contribution.
- Transformed Time & Material (T&M) engagements (SAP, PayPal) into outcome-driven Managed Services models, securing multi-year contractual commitments and strengthening revenue predictability.
- Drove margin improvement through commercial rigor, aligning resource mix, pricing strategy, scope management, and productivity levers to strengthen gross margins and reduce revenue leakage.
- Partnered with US-based executive leadership and global stakeholders to align technology roadmaps with revenue acceleration, portfolio rationalization, and capital allocation priorities.
- Influenced portfolio and investment decisions, partnering with senior business, product, and finance leaders on prioritization, resourcing, and execution strategy.
- Scaled greenfield engineering operations to 150+ cross-functional engineers across strategic accounts, embedding structured leadership tiers and long-term capability depth.
- Successfully Program managed multiple accounts and established high performing engineering pods.
- Drove breakthrough innovation across embedded, cloud, AI/ML, and Generative AI initiatives, leading complex developments with high revenue potential.
- Enabled rapid site maturity, delivering multiple products through disciplined execution, agile-at-scale practices, and strong engineering governance.
- Positioned Bangalore Offshore Development Center as a strategic global engineering hub, achieving delivery, quality, and engineering-maturity parity with established processes.
- Accelerated time-to-market and execution predictability, improving release speed through standardized processes, execution rigor, and portfolio-aligned prioritization.
Program Director -Delivery
Ness Technologies
05.2017 - 04.2021
- Strategic partner to business and finance leadership, shaping investment decisions and roadmap trade-offs across a ~$10M product portfolio, with strong focus on ROI, growth, and cost optimization across global, multi-site teams.
- Owned multi-year product and technology roadmaps, aligning engineering execution with business strategy, customer needs, and emerging technology trends across Modular Systems and Process Instruments.
- Improved Gross Margin by 4-6% YoY by optimizing resource mix, automation leverage, and sprint capacity utilization, reducing cost-to-serve while maintaining SLA adherence.
- Drove margin expansion through disciplined scope management, productivity uplift, and offshore-onshore model calibration.
- Balanced delivery velocity with architectural integrity, making deliberate trade-offs to protect long-term platform scalability, reliability, and maintainability.
- Directed portfolio-level execution at scale, overseeing resource planning, budgeting, delivery governance, releases, and technical debt to ensure predictable outcomes.
- Built and led global, multi-team engineering organizations, developing talent and partnerships through performance management, mentoring, vendor collaboration, and cross-functional alignment.
- Improved DRE from 82% to 94% by embedding in-sprint automation, early defect triage frameworks, and shift-left quality practices.
- Improved execution predictability and risk posture, reducing critical program risks and issues by 20% through proactive identification, mitigation, and leadership intervention.
- Improved SLA compliance consistency through structured governance dashboards and corrective action playbooks.
- Halved attrition (18% → 9%) by institutionalizing structured learning pathways, engagement models, and outcome-based rewards—protecting productivity and reducing hiring costs.
Senior Project Manager
Ness Technologies
05.2014 - 04.2017
- Delivered $10M+ in annual bottom-line savings, leading global Value Engineering and Component Engineering programs across product lines, influencing cost, design, and sourcing decisions at enterprise-wide scale.
- Directed sprint and release planning aligned to capacity models and portfolio commitments, improving execution predictability and release stability.
- Institutionalized structured sprint backlog governance across multiple Product Owners, ensuring sustained backlog health and optimized team throughput.
- Led risk and impediment mitigation frameworks, proactively preventing spillovers and protecting delivery commitments across distributed teams.
- Chaired bi-weekly executive governance forums with business stakeholders, presenting sprint metrics, SLAs, velocity, productivity trends, risk exposure, and corrective action plans.
- Strengthened SLA adherence through structured code-quality governance (code anomalies, coverage metrics, ignored tests), improving engineering discipline and release confidence.
Project Manager
Ness Technologies
11.2011 - 04.2014
- Led complex, global engineering programs, consistently delivering outcomes on or ahead of commitments, including product launches ~15% ahead of schedule across cross-functional teams.
- Improved cost efficiency by ~10%, driving disciplined planning, execution rigor, and resource optimization to strengthen margins and delivery outcomes.
- Established strong program governance and risk management, proactively mitigating execution risks and preventing downstream schedule and quality issues.
- Acted as a trusted interface between engineering, product, and senior leadership, enabling data-driven decisions, strengthening execution maturity, and aligning stakeholders toward shared business objectives.
- Executed sprint planning and story decomposition in JIRA aligned to capacity and release commitments, ensuring disciplined backlog execution.
- Managed sprint backlogs in collaboration with Product Owners, maintaining sprint integrity and delivery focus.
- Drove structured defect triaging and backlog monitoring, balancing feature development with defect resolution within sprint cycles.
- Monitored and stabilized CI/CD pipelines (Jenkins, SVN, ANT, Maven), ensuring continuous stable builds and automated regression execution.
- Achieved near-100% regression coverage by integrating automated testing into continuous integration workflows.
- Implemented QA best practices across manual and automation testing, strengthening regression sustainability across releases.
- Evaluated and deployed Scrum tools; trained teams on backlog creation, estimation techniques, sprint execution, burn-down tracking, and retrospectives.
- Coached distributed offshore Scrum teams to sustain Agile methodologies across development lifecycles.
- Led cross-functional knowledge-sharing initiatives (Brown Bag sessions), strengthening domain depth and agile adoption across teams.
Manager - Quality Control
Professional Access
10.2010 - 11.2011
- Managed and motivated employees to be productive and engaged in work.
- Enhanced customer satisfaction by resolving disputes promptly, maintaining open lines of communication, and ensuring high-quality service delivery.
- Resolved staff member conflicts, actively listening to concerns and finding appropriate middle ground.
- Controlled costs to keep business operating within budget and increase profits.
- Cross-trained existing employees to maximize team agility and performance.
Manager Product Testing
Ness Technologies
06.2004 - 09.2010
- Successfully managed multiple projects simultaneously by prioritizing tasks according to urgency, resource availability, and alignment with organizational goals.
- Identified plans and resources required to meet project goals and objectives.
- Coordinated with cross-functional teams to resolve project issues and mitigate risks.
- Managed risk assessments and implemented mitigation strategies to minimize potential issues during project execution.
- Provided detailed project status updates to stakeholders and executive management.
- Developed strong relationships with stakeholders through regular communication updates, fostering trust and confidence in the team''s ability to deliver results.
- Fostered a culture of innovation and creativity within the project team, leading to improved problem-solving capabilities and enhanced outcomes.
Lead - QA
Symphony Sevices Corp India Ltd
05.2003 - 06.2004
- Collaborated with developers and project managers to assess program capabilities, features and testing demands.
- Established effective communication channels between QA teams, developers, business analysts, and stakeholders for seamless collaboration on project goals.
- Optimized test coverage by performing risk-based testing prioritization.
- Contributed to post-mortem analysis efforts, identifying areas for improvement and implementing proactive measures to prevent future occurrences.
- Reduced production defects through proactive involvement in all stages of the software development lifecycle.
- Developed automated test scripts for faster and more accurate testing results.
Senior Engineer QA
GE, Global eXchange Services
04.2001 - 05.2003
- Documented testing procedures for developers and future testing use.
- Monitored resolution of bugs, tested fixes, and helped developers tackle ongoing problems by providing QA perspective.
- Partnered with leadership team to develop automation strategy and execution plan.
- Kept scripts and test cases updated with current requirements.
- Tested functional and compatibility of new programs or updates in comparison to existing applications.
- Authored and maintained well-organized, efficient and successful manual test cases for entire team.
Systems Analyst
Sonata Software Ltd
07.1998 - 04.2001
Education
Bachelor's Degree of Engineering - Electronics & Instrumentation
SASTRA University
Tamil Nadu01-1996
Skills
Engineering & Site Leadership
Accomplishments
- Employee of the Year 2022, Ness Technologies – Growth Amplifier
- Employee of the Year 2019, Ness Technologies – for Contributions towards Application Delivery Excellence Practice, Account growth.
- Global Practice Head – Application Development and Maintenance.
- Certified Internal Auditor for ISO 9001:2015 standards
Certification
PMP
Timeline
Senior Program Manager Director
Ness Technologies
05.2021 - 01.2026
Program Director -Delivery
Ness Technologies
05.2017 - 04.2021
Senior Project Manager
Ness Technologies
05.2014 - 04.2017
Project Manager
Ness Technologies
11.2011 - 04.2014
Manager - Quality Control
Professional Access
10.2010 - 11.2011
Manager Product Testing
Ness Technologies
06.2004 - 09.2010
Lead - QA
Symphony Sevices Corp India Ltd
05.2003 - 06.2004
Senior Engineer QA
GE, Global eXchange Services
04.2001 - 05.2003
Systems Analyst
Sonata Software Ltd
07.1998 - 04.2001
Bachelor's Degree of Engineering - Electronics & Instrumentation
SASTRA University