Director Software Engineering, Runtime and cross plane Engineering, ITC

This role leads the Cloud Runtime and Control Plane Engineering team at the India Technology Centre, reporting to the Senior Director of Cloud Runtime and Control Plane Engineering and managing two specialised engineering teams. The role drives engineering efforts around developing Kubernetes-based control plane foundations and overseeing the development and operations of critical control planes that enable managed cloud compute, network, storage, and edge functionality. The position collaborates extensively with cloud infrastructure consumers, development teams, application owners, business units, and other infrastructure teams.

• Define and execute the technical vision for the cloud infrastructure platform with counterparts in other geos, translating business strategies into strategic technical direction and delivery plans.
• Present vision, strategies, roadmaps, and progress to senior and executive leadership, and identify and assess technology trends with strategic technology recommendations.
• Lead and grow the local engineering team of individual contributors and managers, ensuring successful delivery of roadmap items through cross-functional problem-solving.
• Drive the transformation from unmanaged to managed cloud resources using declarative technologies, implementing policies for consistent, secure, and efficient resource utilisation.
• Implement automation strategies focused on toil reduction and eliminating manual, error-prone processes, leveraging AI technologies as a force multiplier.
• Create self-service platforms and automation capabilities through Platform Engineering and DevOps practices, and foster a culture of operational excellence through monitoring, alerting, continuous improvement, and modern observability tooling.
• Architect and deliver lifecycle management solutions for cloud resources using reconciliation and drift-detection technologies such as Terraform, Kubernetes operators, and Crossplane, covering compute, network, storage (including enterprise backup), DNS, and CDN.
• Design and implement cloud governance policies and automation to ensure secure, reliable, efficient, and compliant resources
• Partnering with Corporate Security on security-first frameworks and collaborating with Architecture and Product Management to develop platform capabilities using the core technology stack.
• Build multi-cloud control plane architectures using Infrastructure as Code tools such as Terraform, Crossplane, and Kubernetes Operators, manage Kubernetes-based container orchestration platforms for scalable application delivery, and manage CI/CD automation through Jenkins, Azure DevOps
• And GitHub integration.
• Provide 24x7 on-call coverage and operational excellence as a key aspect of the role.

• 15+ years of progressive engineering experience, with at least 5 years in a leadership role.
• BS/MS degree in a technical discipline (CS/EE, etc.).
• Proven experience leading specialised engineering teams through major technology transitions, particularly in cloud networking and compute governance.
• Track record of building and scaling platform engineering organisations with a focus on self-service capabilities.
• Experience partnering with diverse stakeholders including infrastructure consumers, security teams, and technical product management.
• Demonstrated ability to develop talent, manage budgets, and remove delivery blockers in complex, multi-team environments.
• Experience working with globally dispersed teams in a matrixed organisation.
• Deep expertise in AWS with a strong network focus, including advanced VPC design, subnetting, routing, and security groups.
• Extensive experience with Azure integration and networking architectures.
• Hands-on proficiency with Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tools including Terraform and Crossplane for multi-cloud resource management.
• Strong expertise in Kubernetes container orchestration, including cluster management, networking, and application deployment patterns.
• Strong background in CI/CD pipeline design using Jenkins, Azure DevOps, and GitHub integration.
• Experience with Platform Engineering, DevOps practices, and Configuration Management.
• Knowledge of CDN, DNS, containerization technologies, Edge Platform, and Infrastructure as a Service Platform technologies.
• Prior experience migrating from on-premises to Cloud Native infrastructure with a focus on network and container transformation.

• India Technology Centre