Practice Manager

Job Title:
Practice Manager

Locations:
Austin, TX (Onsite)

Role Summary
The Practice Manager is a senior services leader responsible for the health, growth, and delivery excellence of a defined Professional Services practice (region, segment, or domain). Practice Managers sit at the intersection of strategy, sales, and delivery operations, owning PS revenue performance, delivery quality, and capacity planning for their portfolio.
They engage across the full customer lifecycle to align business outcomes, shape services strategy, and ensure engagements are staffed, governed, and executed in line with Confluent s delivery standards. Practice Managers mentor and develop Engagement Managers and technical delivery teams, and work closely with partners to scale services in their theater.

Key Responsibilities
Business Ownership & Forecasting

• Own PS revenue and margin performance for the assigned practice, including commit and best-case forecasts by theater/segment.
• Maintain a clear view of pipeline, bookings, utilization, and backlog, partnering with Sales, CS, and Finance to ensure targets are met.
• Review and approve SOWs, estimates, and delivery models to ensure they are deliverable, profitable, and aligned to practice capabilities.
• Participate in or lead opportunity reviews to validate scope, assumptions, and staffing plans for higher-risk or higher-value deals.

Practice & Portfolio Governance

• Provide oversight across active engagements, ensuring status, stage, and risk in Financial Force and other systems are accurate and up to date.
• Engage directly when projects are yellow/red or stalled, partnering with EMs and Account Teams to re-engage customers or reshape delivery plans.
• Ensure adherence to core delivery processes, including daily updates, status reporting, change control, and project governance standards.
• Drive standardization of artifacts and processes (project templates, governance models, handoff documents) across the practice.

People Leadership & Development

• Provide delivery and leadership mentorship, helping EMs and consultants develop in areas such as stakeholder management, commercial acumen, and escalation handling.
• Partner with PS Leadership and Talent/Recruiting to hire, onboard, and retain top delivery talent in the region.
• Foster a culture of accountability, collaboration, and continuous improvement, aligned to Confluent values.

Sales, Account, and Partner Alignment

• Operate as a key partner to Sales and CS in strategic accounts, aligning PS plans with customer outcomes and adoption roadmaps.
• Support account planning and deal strategy, including positioning the right mix of PS roles, co-delivery models, and partner involvement.
• Collaborate with delivery partners to scale capacity, maintain quality, and ensure partner-delivered work meets Confluent standards.
• Participate in deal desk and exception processes for extensions, exchanges, and change orders, representing PS interests and delivery feasibility.

Practice Development & Thought Leadership

• Shape and communicate the practice strategy (offerings, skills, GTM focus) for the assigned region or domain.
• Contribute to or lead the creation of new or refined offerings, role-based scoping guidelines, and delivery playbooks.
• Capture and share success stories, reusable artifacts, and best practices, driving consistency and efficiency across the practice.
• Represent the practice in cross-functional forums (PS&E Transformation, Delivery Excellence, Partner strategy) and help roll out new processes and tools.

Required Qualifications
Experience:

• Typically, 8+ years in Professional Services, consulting, or delivery leadership roles for enterprise software/SaaS.
• 3 5+ years of experience leading teams and/or managing a portfolio of customer engagements.

Business & Delivery Leadership:

• Proven track record owning services P&L metrics (revenue, margin, utilization) at a regional, segment, or practice level.
• Strong experience overseeing multiple concurrent projects of varying complexity, including escalation management and recovery.
• Ability to translate company and PS strategy into actionable plans for a practice (targets, investments, hiring, and partner usage).

Customer & Stakeholder Management:

• Comfortable engaging with Director/VP-level customer stakeholders and internal leaders.
• Demonstrated ability to navigate complex escalations, align multiple parties, and drive decisions that balance customer success with Confluent s objectives.
• Excellent written and verbal communication, with a bias toward clear, structured updates and data-backed recommendations.

Domain & Operational Acumen:

• Experience working with cloud, data, or streaming technologies and understanding modern PS delivery models (remote, co-delivery, partner-led).
• Familiarity with commercial constructs (SOWs, rate cards, extensions, change orders, exchanges) and systems such as Salesforce and Financial Force.
• Comfort working in a matrix environment, coordinating across Sales, CS, Product, Finance, and Operations.

Preferred Qualifications

• Prior…