Senior Product Manager at Viavi Solutions in Chennai, IND

Senior Product Manager

Location: Chennai, IND

Summary:

Duties & Responsibilities:

Job Description

Senior Product Manager – AIOps & Agentic AI (Telecom)

Location: Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India | Function: Product Management | Level: Senior Individual Contributor (IC4 / SPM equivalent)

About the Role

VIAVI Solutions is at the forefront of AI-driven network intelligence, powering the next generation of telecom operations through its NITRO AIOps platform — a full-stack, domain-agnostic intelligence and automation framework serving Tier-1 and Tier-2 operators globally.

We are hiring a Senior Product Manager – AIOps & Agentic AI based in Chennai to own the product definition, backlog strategy, and go-to-market alignment for our AI/ML and Agentic AI capabilities within the NITRO L8 (AIOps Intelligence Layer) and L9 (Vertical Solutions Layer). This is a high-visibility role sitting at the intersection of network operations intelligence, multi-agent AI orchestration, and operator outcome delivery — working closely with solution architects, R&D, platform engineering, and global field teams.

This role reports to the Director of AIOps Solution Architecture (London/global) and operates as the product authority for the India-aligned product development function.

What You Will Own

Product Strategy & Roadmap

• Define and maintain the product backlog and 2-quarter rolling roadmap for AIOps Intelligence and Vertical Solutions capabilities across RAN, Core, and Transport domains
• Translate operator pain points (MTTR reduction, NOC automation, root cause analysis, proactive anomaly detection) into structured product requirements — PRDs, PDDs, and user stories — with clear acceptance criteria and operator-outcome metrics
• Lead product discovery with global field teams and customers to validate feature hypotheses before R&D commitment
• Drive feature prioritisation using value-vs-effort frameworks anchored to operator outcomes, not internal capability milestones

Agentic AI & AI/ML Product Definition

• Own the product definition for Agentic AI capabilities: multi-agent orchestration workflows, autonomous remediation pipelines, LLM-assisted root cause analysis, and GenAI interfaces for network operations
• Define human-in-the-loop validation requirements, guardrails, and trust frameworks for autonomous AI features — particularly in safety-critical network operations contexts
• Partner with R&D and data science teams to define model evaluation criteria, KPIs, and feedback loops for deployed ML models (anomaly detection, predictive maintenance, traffic forecasting)
• Maintain awareness of emerging frameworks (LangGraph, CrewAI, Model Context Protocol) and assess applicability to platform capabilities

PDD / PRD Authoring & Artifact Quality

• Produce operator-grade Product Definition Documents (PDDs) and Product Requirements Documents (PRDs) as primary artifacts, anchoring each to a one-year product goal and a release outcome map
• Ensure full backlog traceability from PRD to sprint-level user story; drive zero-gap traceability as a team standard
• Champion agentic tooling (e.g., Claude Code, AI-assisted pipelines) as a force multiplier for artifact velocity — with mandatory human validation before any commit

Stakeholder & Cross-Functional Alignment

• Act as the primary product interface between India-based R&D engineering and global solution architecture, PLM, and field teams
• Run structured sprint reviews, backlog refinement sessions, and roadmap alignment meetings with a globally distributed team
• Communicate product decisions, trade-offs, and release outcomes clearly to senior technical and commercial stakeholders
• Provide market intelligence inputs on Indian operator dynamics (Jio, Airtel, Vi, BSNL/BBNL) to inform localisation and vertical solution priority

Go-to-Market Support

• Author customer-facing product briefs, capability comparisons, and battlecard inputs for AIOps and Agentic AI features
• Support pre-sales and solution architecture teams with product positioning for Indian operator bids and RFP responses
• Track competitive landscape across AIOps vendors (Dynatrace, Datadog, IBM Instana, NETSCOUT) and synthesise inputs into roadmap decisions

What You Bring

Experience

• 7–12 years of total experience, with a minimum of 4 years in product management (PO or PM) in a B2B technology or telecom domain
• Demonstrable ownership of AI/ML-powered products from inception to GA release — not just feature contribution
• Experience working within a global product organisation with distributed engineering and solution architecture stakeholders
• Prior exposure to telecom operations environments — NOC, OSS, network analytics, or network management — strongly preferred; prior operator-side experience (Jio, Airtel, Vi, Ericsson, Nokia, ZTE, Amdocs, NetCracker) is a differentiator

Technical Literacy (Required)

• Working knowledge of ML operations concepts: model training pipelines, inference, evaluation metrics, data labelling, and drift monitoring
• Ability to read and critique API specifications, data schemas, and system architecture diagrams — not required to code, but required to engage meaningfully with engineering at a design level
• Familiarity with AIOps platform capabilities: event correlation, anomaly detection, root cause analysis, automated remediation, topology mapping
• Understanding of 5G/LTE network domains at functional level: RAN (gNB, CU/DU split), Core (AMF, SMF, UPF), Transport; sufficient to define domain-specific vertical solutions without requiring constant domain SME support
• Awareness of agentic AI frameworks and LLM orchestration patterns (RAG, tool use, multi-agent coordination)

Technical Literacy (Preferred)

• Hands-on experience with agentic tooling: Claude Code, LangChain/LangGraph, n8n, or equivalent — even in personal/prototype context
• Exposure to telemetry and observability stacks: Prometheus, Grafana, OpenTelemetry, gNMI/gRPC streaming telemetry
• Familiarity with cloud-native deployment patterns: Kubernetes, Helm, containerised microservices

Soft Skills & Ways of Working

• Communicates with precision: produces artifacts that can be handed to engineering without re-interpretation; does not rely on verbal context to carry written requirements
• Operates with structured autonomy — asks for direction on priorities, not on how to execute
• Comfortable managing ambiguity in a maturing product function; can define process where none exists
• Strong stakeholder influence without authority — particularly with senior R&D and architecture counterparts
• Intellectually honest: surfaces blockers and trade-offs proactively; does not manage upward by omission

Qualifications

Dimension

Requirement

Education

B.E. / B.Tech in Computer Science, Electronics & Communication, or related engineering discipline. MBA from a Tier-1 institution (IIM, ISB, XLRI, IIMB) is advantageous but not required.

Certifications

CSPO, PSPO, or equivalent Product Owner certification preferred. AWS/GCP/Azure cloud practitioner beneficial.

Languages

Fluent English (written and spoken) — the role involves daily interaction with UK and US-based stakeholders. Tamil working proficiency advantageous for Chennai-based operator engagement.

Why This Role

• Platform breadth: NITRO covers the full network stack (L1–L9); this role owns the AI intelligence and vertical solution layers — not a feature PM role, but a capability platform ownership role
• Agentic AI at the frontier: VIAVI is actively deploying multi-agent orchestration, LLM-assisted RCA, and autonomous remediation workflows in live operator environments — this role shapes those product decisions
• India market significance: Chennai is a strategic R&D hub for VIAVI; this hire is part of building a Singapore-Ireland-India delivery model with global product authority
• Cross-functional influence: The role interfaces directly with global Solution Architecture, PLM, R&D, and field leadership — not a back-office backlog management position
• Career trajectory: Natural path to Principal PM / Director of Product for the right candidate within 2–3 years as the India team scales

Pre-Requisites / Skills / Experience Requirements: