Manager/Sr. Manager, Engagement - Utility Operations

Role summary

This role is the on-ground anchor for a large-scale digitization and modernization engagement running inside a large state electricity distribution utility. The Engagement Manager owns the day-to-day relationship with the utility, keeps technical deployment on track, and clears the operational and bureaucratic friction that typically stalls this kind of work inside a government-linked organization.

Reports to: Operations leadership

Key responsibilities:

Stakeholder & relationship management

• Serve as the primary day-to-day point of contact between the engagement team and utility officials across all operating circles — building working relationships from field engineers up to circle-level and senior leadership
• Represent the engagement in periodic reviews with utility leadership; prepare clear, concise progress briefings that sustain buy-in and pre-empt pushback
• Read internal utility politics accurately — know which approvals need which sign-off, and which relationships to invest in to keep the engagement moving without escalation

Delivery

• Coordinate on-ground deployment of digital monitoring and asset-mapping tools, including geo-tagging of physical infrastructure (poles, transformers, substations, feeders)
• Track installation and rollout progress against agreed milestones; identify slippage early and escalate before it compounds into a larger delay
• Facilitate and manage the formal approvals required to keep deployment moving — MoUs, data-sharing agreements, site access permissions — chasing these proactively rather than waiting on the utility's own timelines
• Support planning and execution of new technical pilots as the engagement expands into additional circles or new asset categories

Training & adoption

• Design and run structured training sessions for utility field staff and engineers on new digital tools and processes
• Track actual adoption and usage of deployed tools post-training, not just attendance — flag where staff have reverted to old methods and address the root cause
• Build simple, repeatable training materials that can be reused as the engagement scales to new teams or circles

Data & problem-solving

• Monitor asset-tagging and data-quality progress against engagement targets; identify and escalate systemic data gaps to technical leads
• Identify recurring operational bottlenecks — approval delays, staff turnover, resistance to new tools, inconsistent data practices — and propose practical, utility-specific workarounds rather than generic fixes

Requirements

• B.Tech/B.E. (Electrical/Power preferred); Energy/Policy background a plus but not required
• 5-8 years of experience in the power sector, DISCOMs, or utility-focused consulting — candidates from conventional power backgrounds (generation, transmission, coal-side) are welcome
• Working knowledge of smart grid systems, AMI (advanced metering infrastructure), SCADA, or utility IT/data systems
• Demonstrated experience navigating slow-moving, government-linked, or public-sector stakeholder environments and getting things done despite them
• Comfortable being deployed on-site full-time, not a remote-first or hybrid-preference candidate
• High accountability and follow-through with minimal day-to-day supervision — this role is judged on outcomes delivered, not hours logged or visible activity