Introduction to role:
Are you ready to set the global agenda for cloud, hosting, and HPC that accelerates discovery and delivery while safeguarding continuity and compliance? This is a
chance
to
create
and run platforms that power
sophisticated
science, AI, and manufacturing at scale.
Our
teams
can move faster with confidence, and
patients
benefit
sooner.
Could you translate platform strategy into measurable gains in R&D; cycle time, AI velocity, and manufacturing resilience?
You will lead the multi-year
modernization
of our hybrid and multi-cloud estate, unify on-premises and cloud-native capabilities, and enable secure, enterprise-grade machine intelligence and information platforms. Working across continents with diverse, high-caliber teams, you will set standards, drive adoption, and turn complexity into simplicity—linking architecture decisions directly to business outcomes.
Partnering
with leaders across research, production, sales, and corporate areas, you will
build
trust through
transparency,
operational excellence, and clear economic models. Your leadership will connect platform reliability and cost
rigor
to scientific
efficiency
and product availability, ensuring our technology foundations unlock the full potential of our data-driven ambitions.
Accountabilities:
Platform Strategy and
Modernization
: Define and complete a multi-year plan for various cloud infrastructures and server management solutions. Align this strategy with central goals in R&D; acceleration, AI enablement, production stability, expense management, and adherence to regulatory standards. Define destination architectures and strategic plans for integrating regions and uniform frameworks in cloud environment. Also define plans for
dedicated
virtual infrastructures along with updates to virtualization technologies, physical compute systems, and storage
improvements
that incorporate data backup and cybersecurity restoration.
Cloud Adoption and Migration: Drive appropriate cloud adoption through analyzing workload distribution, placement criteria, architectural frameworks, and migration hubs, encompassing updates to applications and data systems, to deliver speed, reliability, and cost
transparency.
Artificial intelligence, machine learning, and Data Platform Enablement provide robust, production-level infrastructure for processing and storing data in support of intelligent algorithms and
sophisticated
data analysis. This encompasses GPU-accelerated environments and
adaptable
data repositories
built
to support model training and prediction tasks. Connect platform services to
MLOps
toolchains and organizational monitoring systems. Support emerging patterns like hosting for large language model inference, vector-based retrieval, and data pipelines capable of handling high volumes. Ensure architectures are
compliant
and controls are automated.
High Performance Computing and Scientific Compute: Lead the planning and management of HPC activities across on-premises infrastructure and cloud environments, supporting computational experiments, predictive analytics, biological data analysis, chemical data processing, and large-Scale data research. Drive performance, scalability,
efficiency,
and
improvement
of queue management alongside maintaining system
integrity,
regulatory standards, and reliable reproducibility, and guide
modern
HPC techniques such as dynamic cloud bursting, container-based processes, hardware-accelerated computing, and
improved
high-throughput data storage.
Storage, Data Protection, and Cyber Resilience: Deliver worldwide storage systems featuring reliable uptime,
efficient
performance, comprehensive data lifecycle oversight, and financial
efficiency.
Own backup, restoration, emergency data retrieval, and digital threat incident restoration functions
advised
by evaluations of business continuity needs and recovery timelines. Partner with Cybersecurity on resilient architectures and prompt handling of ransomware and significant incidents.
Service Delivery, Reliability, and Operations Excellence: Lead around-the-clock international operations achieving quantifiable
improvements
in system availability, incident minimization, and recovery time. Implement resource and




efficiency
oversight,
detailed
monitoring and observability, and operations centered on automation. Own lifecycle management including patching, keeping platforms up to date, configuration consistency, and hardware upgrades.
Developed
SRE methods incorporating performance targets, tolerance thresholds, procedural documentation, fault-tolerant incident analyses, and continuous
improvement.
Oversight, Risk Management, and Regulatory Adherence: Ensure platforms align with statutory, quality assurance, and internal oversight criteria, including GxP where applicable. Embed infrastructure-as-code governance, traceable audit documentation, methodical change oversight, and thorough supplier risk management. Partner with Quality, Risk, Legal, and Security to
manage
platform risks and remediation.
Financial Management and Commercial Optimization:
Manage
platform financial resources and demonstrate value through
transparent
cost-to-serve and service consumption models. Operationalize cost management practices for cloud consumption—including
showback
/chargeback, financial
efficiency
analysis, capacity adjustment, planning around
dedication,
and forecast accuracy. Optimize agreements and permissions with external suppliers, and
build
cases for
modernization,
resiliency, AI acceleration, and capacity growth.
Leadership, Talent, and
Stakeholder
Management: Lead and
develop
global teams across cloud engineering, hosting/virtualization, storage, backup/DR, HPC/scientific compute, and platform operations.
Build
a high-performing
culture
grounded in safety, accountability, automation, and
continuous
learning.
Serve
as
a
trusted
advisor to senior leaders, translating platform capabilities into measurable business outcomes.
Essential
Skills/Experience:
Proven
track
record
to establish and deliver a multi-year strategy for hybrid/multi-cloud and hosting services. The strategy supports business priorities such as R&D;, AI, manufacturing continuity, cost control, and regulatory compliance. ance.
Track record establishing target architectures and roadmaps for public cloud landing zones and standardized patterns, private cloud and virtualization
modernization,
on-premises compute platforms, and storage
modernization
including backup and data restoration strategies.
Demonstrated experience driving cloud adoption via workload rationalization, placement standards, reference architectures, and migration factories, including application and data
modernization.
Expertise in delivering enterprise-grade systems for processing power and data management in AI/ML and
advanced
analytics. These systems include GPU-enabled platforms and scalable storage for training and inference.
Experience delivering secure environments for
sensitive
R&D;, patient, and regulated data aligned to privacy, residency, and quality requirements.
Ability to integrate platform services with
MLOps
toolchains (CI/CD, model registry, monitoring) and enterprise observability.
Experience supporting emerging AI patterns such as LLM inference hosting, vector search, and high-throughput data pipelines with
compliant
architectures, automated controls, and operational readiness.
Proven
partnership with Data and AI leadership to operationalize governance, cost controls, and responsible use requirements for AI workloads.
Ownership of HPC strategy and operations across on-premises and cloud HPC, enabling simulation, modeling, bioinformatics, cheminformatics, and data-intensive research.
Demonstrated capability to drive HPC performance, scalability, throughput, and queue optimization while maintaining security, compliance, and reproducibility, and to lead
modern
HPC patterns including elastic burst-to-cloud, containerized workflows, GPU acceleration, and optimized high-throughput storage.




Experience delivering global storage platforms with high availability, performance, data lifecycle management, and budget-conscious operations (tiering, archiving, data reduction).
Ownership of backup, restore, disaster recovery, and cyber incident restoration capabilities aligned to business impact analyses and RTO/RPO requirements, and effective response to ransomware and major incidents in partnership with Cybersecurity.
Manage
worldwide 24x7 operations for cloud and hosting platforms. This includes
improving
availability, reducing incidents, speeding recovery,
managing
capacity and performance, standardizing oversight and diagnostics, and
prioritizing
automation.
End-to-end lifecycle management experience including patching, platform currency, configuration compliance, and hardware refresh, with
mature
SRE practices (SLOs, error budgets, runbooks, blameless postmortems, continuous
improvement
).
Solid governance, risk, and compliance
acumen
ensuring platforms meet regulatory, quality, and internal control requirements (including GxP), with policy-as-code, audit-ready evidence, focused
change
management,
and robust third-party/vendor assurance.
Financial leadership owning platform budgets and operationalizing
FinOps
for cloud consumption (
showback
/chargeback, unit economics, rightsizing, commitments/reservations, forecast accuracy), with a record of optimizing vendor contracts and licensing and
building
investment cases.
Executive leadership of global engineering and operations teams,
encouraging
a
culture
of
protection, responsibility, mechanization, and ongoing development. Act
as
a
trusted
partner to senior collaborators across R&D;, Manufacturing, Commercial, and Corporate functions.
Desirable Skills/Experience:
Experience in highly
regulated
industries with direct exposure to quality audits and validation, including GxP contexts.
Background leading major platform transformations that combine on-premises
modernization
with scaled public cloud adoption using migration factories.
Practical knowledge of AI governance frameworks, responsible AI controls, and cost optimization for GPU-intensive workloads.
Hands-on familiarity with HPC schedulers, containerized scientific workflows, and GPU acceleration trade-offs for diverse research workloads.
Proven
leadership through significant incidents and cyber recovery events, with emphasis on immutable backup designs and segmentation strategies.
Public cloud and
FinOps
certifications and experience establishing policy-as-code and SRE frameworks at enterprise scale.
Track record influencing at C-suite level, simplifying
sophisticated
platform decisions into clear business outcomes and economic models.
Why AstraZeneca:
Here, platform decisions change the speed and quality of science. You will work with unexpected teams in the same room—engineers, data scientists, security leaders, and researchers—unleashing
bold
thinking to power discovery and reliable production. We invest in
modern
technology, pair ambition with
kindness,
and back our people to experiment,
learn,
and scale what works. Your work will connect
cutting-edge
compute and storage to real
patient
impact, while you grow with a diverse,
inclusive
community that values
transparency,
high standards, and cross-boundary collaboration.
Call to Action:
If you're ready to lead infrastructure and hosting environments that accelerate science, enable AI at scale, and harden our operations for what's next, step forward and lead this transformation with us!
Date Posted
06-Feb-****
Closing Date
19-Feb-****
AstraZeneca embraces diversity and equality of opportunity. We are committed to building an inclusive and diverse team representing all backgrounds, with as wide a range of perspectives as possible, and harnessing industry-leading skills. We believe that the more inclusive we are, the better our work will be. We welcome and consider applications to join our team from all qualified candidates, regardless of their characteristics. We comply with all applicable laws and regulations on non-discrimination in employment (and recruitment), as well as work authorization and employment eligibility verification requirements.

📌 Executive Director, Global Cloud & Hosting Platforms (Chennai)
🏢 AstraZeneca
📍 Chennai