Shil is available for hire
Hire ShilShil Sondagar
Verified Expert in Project Management
Project Manager
Location
Toronto, ON, Canada
Toptal Member Since
October 28, 2020
Shil's journey in project management—over 15 years long—has provided him with in-depth and hands-on experience around all aspects of delivering quality projects, products, and services. From project and product management, delivery processes, and coaching, Shil is your well-rounded "get it done" professional. Shil's engagement style is collaborative and open while driving alignment to deliver high quality, valued projects that mesmerize the user.
Project Highlights
Cybersecurity Platform
Project managed large cross-functional collaboration initiatives that would enable and pave the path for a unified cybersecurity platform, aimed at increasing the customer base 10-fold over the next two years.
Web and Mobile App Modernization for the Hospitality Industry
Launched a modern web and mobile responsive web app to serve over 1,000 enterprise customers in the hospitality industry globally within the project timeline with an increased scope!
Expertise
Work Experience
Director of Delivery and Engineering
2019 - 2020
Book4Time, Inc.
- Responsible for establishing effective project delivery principles and structure within the engineering and product departments during a high growth phase in order to promote effective and efficient execution.
- Led 12 large B2B project initiatives from requirements to release using Agile methodologies (Scrum, Kanban, and/or Scrumban) across four parallel teams and product lines.
- Recreated and redesigned Jira and Confluence entities (workflows, screens, forms, permissions, templates, and so on) and projects to streamline and align the project management methodology instilled at the company.
- Introduced the concept of technical roadmaps to plan for short and long-term technical initiatives with the goal of uncovering technical uncertainty which would lead to successful projects.
- Led the project and program management transformation across cross-functional teams such as product, engineering, customer success, support, sales, and marketing to ensure that teams deliver customer value based on prioritized customer commitments.
- Spearheaded a multi-phased transformation from “doing Agile” to a “being Agile” mindset while defining a squad/pod type project delivery framework.
Director of Delivery and Engineering
2017 - 2019
Norton Lifelock
- Responsible for leading the program, project, and engineering teams while executing on over ten concurrent projects.
- Led large cross-functional collaboration initiatives that would enable and pave the path for a unified cybersecurity application, aimed at increasing customer base 10-fold.
- Worked hand in hand with leadership to strategize, plan, and prioritize roadmaps and projects/programs.
- Managed the program forecast and budget while optimizing operations to reduce cost.
- Oversaw and managed external and internal partners/vendors for integration with the products.
- Oversaw over 25 projects and releases over a 1.5-year period—ensuring the execution of the product and technical roadmap and leading to a year-over-year double-digit increase in the revenue and user base.
- Led the alignment of Agile values and practices across global engineering, product, marketing, and business development teams during a highly visible cybersecurity enterprise program delivery.
Director of Delivery and Engineering
2014 - 2017
SurfEasy, Inc.
- Responsible for leading the end-to-end project delivery of world-class software applications in the cybersecurity space.
- Guided the project delivery from ideation/discovery, design, development, QA, and post-production operations across 12+ products and 6+ platforms resulting in over 60 successful project releases.
- Responsible for growing and leading a highly ownership-oriented Agile project and engineering team.
- Managed external and internal partners/vendors for integrations with the products.
- Managed outsourced development deliverables according to scope and time plans across PST, EST, European, and Asian time zones.
- Led successful Agile adoption and transformation of the organization by assessing initial state and creating a strategic roadmap with leadership, stakeholders and teams to incorporate fundamental Agile values and principles.
Agile Project Manager
2013 - 2015
Architech Consulting Services
- Led and directed daily operations of multiple projects, ranging of 10-15 Agile team members.
- Managed $15+ million-dollar projects against business requirements and delivery metrics.
- Partnered with telecommunications and government transportation clients to understand their business needs and identify and prioritize their project requirements to develop and manage a project backlog.
- Identified, managed, and mitigated project risks, including tracking projects against metrics and preparing client reports, client communication, and presentations while managing product scope and controlling scope during the development.
- Facilitated effective Agile team meetings including standups, sprint planning, retrospectives, and demos while successfully managed the sprint backlog and key project elements (risks, scope, budgets, and schedules).
- Liaised between the client and the project team to ensure user stories/acceptance criteria are clearly defined, understood, and implemented successfully.
- Worked closely with a team of Agile project managers to define and refine tools and templates that track, monitor, and forecast delivery metrics.
- Spearheaded the adoption of Agile practices and values across product and engineering teams for Architech's SMB and enterprise clients during client engagements.
R&D Agile Development Manager
2011 - 2013
Complete Innovations, Inc.
- Managed and directed daily operations of a 25-person research & development organization with full accountability for team performance, goals, KPIs, best practices, and a budget of $2.5 million.
- Executed and maintained a resource plan, effectively allocating people, time, processes, and systems to deliver on multiple enterprise-level customizations and implementation projects using Scrum and Kanban.
- Led strategic planning processes to assess, change, implement, and continually evolve and improve the Agile development and project management processes.
- Managed outsourcing activities and maintained remote communication with developers; collaborated with cross-functional project teams to access, address, and resolve development, deployment, or support issues.
Scrum Master | Senior R&D Developer
2007 - 2011
Complete Innovations, Inc.
- Introduced, led, and incorporated Agile methodologies across the organization, including all training/development and process improvement initiatives in order to effectively manage projects of various scale.
- Successfully managed and released mission critical enterprise asset tracking solutions, servicing over 10K clients globally - on time and on budget using Agile methodologies.
- Credited with driving projects, processes, increasing visibility (transparency into the process), and overall improvements, which led to record sales and product line profitability gains.
- Led Scrum ceremonies and activities such as sprint planning, standups, retrospectives, risk analysis, team charters, product backlog, story-grooming sessions, pair programming, and TDD to manage projects from discovery to delivery.
Senior Engineer | Business Analyst
2004 - 2007
Complete Innovations, Inc.
- Managed and led complex projects through the SDLC process, ensuring project scope and deliverables were within timelines, budgets, and quality standards to meet customer needs.
- Successfully led and managed a large-scale implementation with an enterprise transportation and logistics client, valued at over $500,000 to the annual budget.
- Paved the path to incorporate Agile as a framework to enable success to project management.
Project History
Cybersecurity Platform
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.symantec.securewifiProject managed large cross-functional collaboration initiatives that would enable and pave the path for a unified cybersecurity platform, aimed at increasing the customer base 10-fold over the next two years.
My role was to lead the project delivery of a consumer-based VPN solution into a global cybersecurity suite of applications such as anti-virus, dark web monitoring, identity protection, and so on.
The solutions were built to work on native Android, iOS, Mac, and Windows using an open-source back-end VPN platform.
The initiatives required tight collaboration between eight teams located across the globe and made up of program and project managers, engineers, and product managers. This initiative involved dependency mapping and tracking, large-scale program management and delivery, and risk-based management, all in an Agile environment.
The solutions were built to work on native Android, iOS, Mac, and Windows using an open-source back-end VPN platform.
The initiatives required tight collaboration between eight teams located across the globe and made up of program and project managers, engineers, and product managers. This initiative involved dependency mapping and tracking, large-scale program management and delivery, and risk-based management, all in an Agile environment.
Web and Mobile App Modernization for the Hospitality Industry
Launched a modern web and mobile responsive web app to serve over 1,000 enterprise customers in the hospitality industry globally within the project timeline with an increased scope!
I led a rebuild of a web responsive application that managed spa and wellness bookings for customers via a B2B2C solution. The older website was over 15 years old, and we built a modern, web-responsive, white-labeled website using Angular as the front end, .NET Core, and SQL as the back end.
I primarily worked with the product, business, and design teams to identify MVP and corresponding high-level UX/UI to estimate the development. I reviewed scope with the product, engineering, and QA teams and performed story mapping sessions to gauge user flows and associated technical requirements and design.
I collaborated with the main product manager to create epics and related stories, which were then estimated and converted to a project plan, ensuring that the higher risk elements such as API integrations, third-party deliverables, and test suites were closely managed and identified as the critical path.
I primarily worked with the product, business, and design teams to identify MVP and corresponding high-level UX/UI to estimate the development. I reviewed scope with the product, engineering, and QA teams and performed story mapping sessions to gauge user flows and associated technical requirements and design.
I collaborated with the main product manager to create epics and related stories, which were then estimated and converted to a project plan, ensuring that the higher risk elements such as API integrations, third-party deliverables, and test suites were closely managed and identified as the critical path.
Education
1998 - 2003
Bachelor's Degree in Computer Engineering
University of Ottawa - Ottawa, ON, Canada
Certifications
AUGUST 2010 - PRESENT
Certified Scrum Master
Scrum Alliance
Collaboration That Works
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