The Customer Success Program Manager is accountable for the end-to-end success of assigned customer programs, operational services, and support engagements across a defined product and service scope. The role leads cross-functional and geographically dispersed teams from initiation through completion; establishes program goals aligned with customer objectives and Nokia strategy; manages scope, cost, schedule, quality, risk, opportunities, and contractual commitments; and ensures exceptional customer satisfaction, financial performance, health and safety, and operational delivery. The successful candidate acts as the customer’s trusted advisor and coordinates R&D, Product Line Management, Technical Support, Quality, Supply Chain, Logistics, Professional Services, Sales, and Account Management to achieve rapid issue resolution, proactive risk mitigation, and continuous improvement.
- Strategic Customer Leadership: Serve as the primary advocate, executive-facing representative, trusted advisor, and single point of accountability for the hyperscale customer; build relationships across operational, engineering, architecture, procurement, and executive organizations; understand customer objectives and drive a proactive white-glove experience.
- Technical Leadership and Escalation Management: Lead complex, high-severity escalations across software, hardware, IP networking, optical transport, cloud infrastructure, network management, logistics, and operational processes; coordinate investigation and resolution, challenge assumptions, close technical gaps, and maintain ownership through completion.
- Root Cause, Quality, and Engineering Engagement: Connect customer engineering teams with Nokia R&D, Product Line Management, Quality, and Technical Support; drive root cause analysis, corrective actions, lab replication, defect validation, feature prioritization, reliability improvements, and incorporation of field experience into product and service plans.
- Program and Project Management: Manage concurrent deployments, upgrades, hardware replacement programs, quality initiatives, reliability programs, and service improvement projects; maintain integrated plans, milestones, action registers, resources, dependencies, risks, communications, and executive status reporting.
- Contract, Financial, and Delivery Performance: Control scope, schedule, cost, quality, profitability, forecasts, contractual commitments, acceptance, claims, changes, handovers, and closure; align delivery with Nokia governance and identify appropriate renewal or expansion opportunities.
- Cross-Functional and Virtual Team Leadership: Lead geographically dispersed teams without direct authority; align engineering, support, operations, quality, supply chain, logistics, professional services, sales, and account management; assign and track actions, resolve conflicts, remove barriers, and drive accountability and urgency.
- Operational Excellence and Governance: Conduct operational reviews, business reviews, governance meetings, and program checkpoints; monitor contractual KPIs, service performance, case trends, escalation metrics, customer satisfaction, and corrective-action effectiveness; ensure program data, risks, opportunities, and decisions remain current.
- Risk Management and Continuous Improvement: Identify delivery, technical, operational, commercial, and customer-experience risks; implement mitigation plans, address recurring issues, apply lessons learned and best practices, and develop customer success plans that improve reliability, efficiency, quality, and measurable business outcomes.
- Executive and Customer Communications: Deliver concise, actionable incident updates, executive briefings, status reports, operational and business reviews, and customer-facing presentations; translate complex technical issues, progress, decisions, risks, and mitigation strategies for technical and non-technical audiences while maintaining credibility and transparency.
You have:
- Industry Experience: 10+ years in telecommunications, IP networking, cloud infrastructure, optical networking, or a related technology field.
- Customer-Facing Leadership: 5+ years in Customer Success, Technical Account Management, Program Management, Escalation Management, Support Leadership, or a comparable role supporting hyperscale cloud providers or large enterprise customers.
- Technical Expertise: Strong knowledge of IP networking, optical transport, DWDM, Ethernet and Layer 2/3 technologies, cloud infrastructure, network management systems, and hardware and software troubleshooting.
- Technical Investigation: Experience engaging software developers, systems architects, support engineers, and product teams, including interpretation of logs, traces, fault-isolation data, defect records, and root cause analyses.
- Program and Commercial Management: Proven ability to manage complex initiatives across scope, schedule, cost, quality, risk, resources, stakeholders, contracts, global dependencies, and competing priorities.
- Escalation and Executive Management: Demonstrated success leading high-severity customer escalations, contractual delivery, corrective actions, and executive-level communications.
- Leadership and Influence: Ability to lead large, global, cross-functional teams without direct authority, build consensus, drive accountability, and influence decisions across matrixed organizations.
- Stakeholder and Conflict Management: Strong negotiation, conflict-resolution, relationship-management, and problem-solving skills across customer and internal leadership levels.
- Communication and Strategic Judgment: Exceptional written, verbal, facilitation, and presentation skills, with the ability to translate complex technical matters for engineers and executives while balancing immediate issue resolution with long-term strategic and commercial objectives.
Nokia is a global leader in connectivity for the AI era. With expertise across fixed, mobile and transport networks, powered by the innovation of Nokia Bell Labs, we’re advancing connectivity to secure a brighter world.
Our recruitment process
We act inclusively and respect the uniqueness of people. Our employment decisions are made regardless of race, color, national or ethnic origin, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, marital status, disability, protected veteran status or other characteristics protected by law. We are committed to a culture of inclusion built upon our core value of respect.
If you’re interested in this role but don’t meet every listed requirement, we still encourage you to apply. Unique backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences enrich our teams, and you may be just the right candidate for this or another opportunity.
The length of the recruitment process may vary depending on the specific role's requirements. We strive to ensure a smooth and inclusive experience for all candidates. Discover more about the recruitment process at Nokia.
- Corporate Retirement Savings Plan
- Health and dental benefits
- Short-term disability, and long-term disability
- Life insurance, and AD&D – Company paid 2x base pay
- Optional or Supplemental life and AD&D insurance (Employee/Spouse/Child)
- Paid time off for holidays and Vacation
- Employee Stock Purchase Plan
- Tuition Assistance Plan
- Adoption assistance
- Employee Assistance Program/Work Life Resource Program
Skills Required
- 10+ years of experience in telecommunications, IP networking, cloud infrastructure, optical networking, or a related technology field
- 5+ years in Customer Success, Technical Account Management, Program Management, Escalation Management, Support Leadership, or a comparable role
- Experience supporting hyperscale cloud providers or large enterprise customers
- Strong knowledge of IP networking, optical transport, DWDM, Ethernet, Layer 2 and Layer 3 technologies, cloud infrastructure, network management systems, and hardware and software troubleshooting
- Experience engaging software developers, systems architects, support engineers, and product teams in technical investigations
- Experience interpreting logs, traces, fault-isolation data, defect records, and root cause analyses
- Ability to manage complex initiatives involving scope, schedule, cost, quality, risk, resources, stakeholders, contracts, global dependencies, and competing priorities
- Demonstrated success leading high-severity customer escalations, contractual delivery, corrective actions, and executive-level communications
- Ability to lead large global cross-functional teams without direct authority
- Strong negotiation, conflict-resolution, relationship-management, and problem-solving skills
- Exceptional written, verbal, facilitation, and presentation skills
- Ability to translate complex technical matters for engineers and executives while balancing immediate resolution with strategic and commercial objectives
Nokia Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Nokia and has not been reviewed or approved by Nokia.
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Equity Value & Accessibility — Equity programs include a global employee share purchase plan with company matching and multi‑year share awards. These mechanisms broaden participation and tie rewards to long‑term outcomes.
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Healthcare Strength — Health coverage includes major medical plans with supplementary options such as vision, legal services, and care navigation. The range of offerings indicates comprehensive support for medical needs.
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Parental & Family Support — A global policy grants paid leave for new parents regardless of gender and provides structured return‑to‑work support. Company‑paid life insurance further strengthens family protection across regions.
Nokia Insights
What We Do
At Nokia, we create technology that helps the world act together. As a trusted partner for critical networks, we are committed to innovation and technology leadership across mobile, fixed and cloud networks. We create value with intellectual property and long-term research, led by the award-winning Nokia Bell Labs. Adhering to the highest standards of integrity and security, we help build the capabilities needed for a more productive, sustainable and inclusive world.
