Pinkal Desai | PMP

Pinkal J. Desai PMP

Senior UC & Telecom Technical Lead — Enterprise Voice Modernization, TTU Cutover Delivery & Escalation Leadership

16+ years in enterprise voice and unified communications at Fortune 100 scale. On the flagship PRI-to-SIP modernization I was the technical lead on the cutover floor — joining all 260+ TTU transition events, troubleshooting issues live, and making each transition successful: zero major outages, $2.5M+ in annual savings, and a 317-server platform brought to 100% adoption.

Murphy, TX · Remote · pinkaldesai3@gmail.com · LinkedIn
Targeting: Technical Program Manager · Technical Account Manager · Engineering / UC Manager roles
Currently: Google Cloud Digital Leader certified · Associate Cloud Engineer (ACE) in progress · hands-on with Google Cloud — my Gemini RAG assistant runs live on Cloud Run
16+Years of Experience
260+TTU Cutovers
$2.5M+Annual Savings
300K+DIDs Migrated
0Major Outages

About

I'm a PMP-certified senior UC engineer and technical lead specializing in enterprise voice, unified communications, and multi-site cutover delivery. At HCA Healthcare — a Fortune 100, 15-division enterprise — I serve as technical lead for the transition events of a multi-year PRI-to-SIP modernization across 200+ hospital sites, and as one of four engineers who form the enterprise escalation point for voice across all divisions.

My work is hands-on: I join the TTU cutover windows, troubleshoot what is breaking in real time, and own the technical outcome until the site verifies clean. When a 10x mid-program scope and cost shift hit the PRI-to-SIP program, the team reset its roadmap and still finished two months ahead of the accelerated timeline, with zero unplanned outages. I also build the tooling that makes operations stick — a Splunk UC health dashboard, ServiceNow-integrated alerting, an automated validation standard across 90 UC clusters, and a UC training academy that has trained 30+ analysts.

The roles I'm targeting — Technical Program Manager, Technical Account Manager, and engineering/UC management — sit exactly on that mix: delivery and account leadership that stays genuinely technical, from stakeholder reviews down to a SIP trace on a failing cutover.

Alongside delivery work, I build with modern cloud and AI tooling: I'm Google Cloud Digital Leader certified, currently pursuing the Google Cloud Associate Cloud Engineer certification, and I have built two retrieval-augmented AI assistants for UC troubleshooting (open-source LLM and Gemini API on Cloud Run).

Experience

Apr 2019 — Present

Consulting UC & Network Infrastructure Engineer — Technical Lead, PRI-to-SIP Cutovers

HCA Healthcare · Remote (Murphy, TX) · Fortune 100, multi-site enterprise infrastructure
  • Technical lead for the cutover program of a multi-year PRI-to-SIP modernization across 15 divisions and 200+ hospital sites: joined all 260+ TTU transition events, troubleshooting issues live during cutover windows (including after-hours production windows) to make each transition successful — coordinating number porting and carrier partners (AT&T, Lumen); 300,000+ DIDs migrated, $2.5M+ annual savings, zero major outages.
  • Helped the program absorb a 10x mid-program cost and scope shift — roadmaps reset with stakeholders, delivery finished 2 months ahead of the accelerated timeline with zero unplanned outages.
  • Brought a Cisco Intersight compute platform to 317 servers and 100% adoption across 60+ engineers — per-division RBAC organizations, a ServiceNow webhook for automatic incident creation, and a 4-month vendor capability build driven through escalation; MTTR fell from 1–2 days to 4–6 hours.
  • Led root cause analysis after a CUCM upgrade took down a hospital's nurse call system; redesigned the change process (every affected system named in notices, live status channel during upgrades) — the remaining 10 hospitals upgraded with no incidents.
  • Defined a repeatable validation standard with Cisco and a strategic engineering vendor after a routing-loop outage; rolled it out across 90 UC clusters with automated quarterly compliance checks.
  • Designed and delivered a Splunk-based UC health dashboard giving 60+ engineers ongoing visibility into operational health; run monthly cadence and performance reviews with all 15 divisions.
  • One of four engineers serving as the enterprise escalation point across 15 divisions, owning root cause analysis on hundreds of incidents.
  • Lead the day-to-day work of a three-engineer UC team; designed and delivered a UC training academy for 30+ analysts.
  • Delivered a POTS-to-IPFLEX migration and firmware upgrade across 28 voice gateways, a CUCM tie-trunk integration with an acquired company's Avaya environment, and telephony for a new clinical simulation center — surveyed, sized, and delivered one week early.
Jun 2014 — Mar 2019

Senior Network Analyst — Enterprise Voice Infrastructure

State Farm Insurance · Irving, TX
  • Supported enterprise network and voice infrastructure for 18,000+ agent offices across North America, including UCCE and CUCM contact center and UC environments.
  • Contributed to large-scale upgrades, migrations, and performance optimization with cross-functional teams on multi-site deployments.
  • Built automation and provisioning processes plus knowledge base documentation that improved L1/L2 resolution rates.
Mar 2013 — Jun 2014

Cisco Level 3 VoIP Support Engineer

Corning Incorporated · Painted Post, NY
  • Led end-to-end infrastructure implementations at global manufacturing sites, from requirements gathering through configuration.
  • Managed multi-vendor system coexistence and post-cutover validation.
Mar 2011 — Feb 2013

Converged Network Analyst

State Farm Insurance · Bloomington, IL
  • Maintained infrastructure across 18,500+ agent office locations.
  • Executed large-scale bulk provisioning across 6,500+ agent offices.
Aug 2010 — Feb 2011

Cisco Voice Support

Cetera Financial Group / Plexus UC · Travel
  • Administered enterprise networking and unified communications in a compliance-sensitive financial services environment, supporting routing, switching, and systems operations.

Signature Programs & Projects

PRI-to-SIP Modernization — Technical Lead, TTU Cutovers

A multi-year program replacing legacy PRI circuits with SIP across 15 divisions and 200+ hospital sites. I served as technical lead on the transition events — on the line for all 260+ TTU cutovers, troubleshooting issues live and coordinating carriers, porting, and site teams until each site verified clean.

260+ TTU cutovers300,000+ DIDs$2.5M+ saved / yearZero major outages

Compute Platform Adoption — Cisco Intersight

Brought a highly available compute platform to 317 servers with per-division organizations and role-based access, ServiceNow alert integration, and a phased rollout that took engineer adoption from initial skepticism to 100% — including a 4-month vendor capability build to close a multi-tenant architecture gap.

317 servers100% adoptionMTTR 1–2 days → 4–6 hrs

UC Health Visibility & Validation Standard

Built a Splunk-based UC health dashboard for 60+ engineers and, with Cisco, a validation checklist for UC clusters after a critical outage — rolled out across 90 clusters with phased onboarding and automated quarterly compliance checks, turning one-off fixes into a repeatable standard.

90 clustersSplunk dashboardsAutomated checks

AI Assistants for UC Troubleshooting — Personal RAG Projects

Two retrieval-augmented generation assistants that answer UC troubleshooting questions from curated documentation: one built on an open-source model (Qwen2.5-7B via Hugging Face), and one on Google's Gemini API hosted on Google Cloud Run.

RAG / LLMGemini APICloud Run

Try the live Gemini demo →

Core Expertise

Voice & Unified Communications

Cisco CUCMUCCE Contact CenterUnity ConnectionSIP / PRISBC / CUBEVoice Gateways & ISRNumber PortingDID MigrationIVRAvaya IntegrationSIP Trace AnalysisRTMT

Cutover Delivery & Technical Leadership

Multi-Site RolloutsTTU Transition EventsLive Cutover TroubleshootingDependency ManagementRisk ManagementChange GovernanceCutover ExecutionCarrier & Vendor ManagementExecutive ReportingKPI DashboardsProcess Improvement

Platforms, Monitoring & Automation

Cisco IntersightCisco UCSServiceNowSplunkAutomated ValidationBulk ProvisioningRoot Cause AnalysisIncident Escalation

Cloud & AI

Google CloudCloud RunGemini APIRetrieval-Augmented GenerationHugging FaceLLM Tooling

Certifications & Education

PMP — Project Management ProfessionalActive
Google Cloud Digital LeaderCertified
Google Cloud Associate Cloud EngineerIn progress
Cisco CCNP Collaboration · CCNA CollaborationPreviously held
Master of Science, Electrical EngineeringFairleigh Dickinson University, NJ
Bachelor of Science, Electronics & Telecommunication EngineeringNorth Maharashtra University, India

Contact

I'm targeting Technical Program Manager, Technical Account Manager, and engineering/UC management roles — positions that need a technical leader who can run multi-site delivery and vendor escalations, and still get on the cutover call and troubleshoot. The fastest way to reach me is email:

pinkaldesai3@gmail.com

Connect on LinkedIn

Based in Murphy, TX · working remotely · résumé available as a PDF download.