How Shantan moved from engineering leadership into a Client Partner role over a year-long search

Shantan was a Director of Software and Platform Engineering at Cognizant, and he wanted to move to the commercial side and own a P&L. He landed a Client Partner role at Infosys serving banking and financial services customers. It took about a year.

Changing careers is harder than changing companies

Most of the stories on here are a leader moving to a similar job at a better company. Shantan's was a different animal. Moving from engineering delivery into a client-facing P&L role means your resume has to make an argument, not just list what you have done, and getting that argument right took real iteration.

“It took a while because we went back and forth for you to understand what I'm doing, and then framing things, and then building a resume. We did what, 10 or 12 versions of the resume as well, before nailing down what kind of positioning worked.”

Ten or twelve versions is just what repositioning across functions costs. It is also why a year was the right thing to expect here. A search like this taking a year is normal, and no sign that anything went wrong.

He turned offers down, and some of it hurt

“I had very open conversations. I had to say no to some of those offers. Some of course were a little heartbreaking, because I went through multiple rounds of interviews and then it didn't work out.”

What he was really after

“Of course I was in sales, I was managing P&L. I'll be managing a large P&L. As the P&L grows, I'll grow.”

He picked the role for where it could take him. The starting pay was not the point.

“I think in the future it also opens multiple other avenues for me.”

The search in numbers

• About a year, which is normal for a move across functions
• 10 to 12 resume versions before the positioning worked
• Client Partner, Banking and Financial Services at Infosys
• Level: Director. Function: Engineering