Cloud Architecture Lead

Seniority: Senior Leadership / Technical Lead

Experience:12-18+ years in IT, Cloud Architecture, Infrastructure Engineering, or related domains

*This is a contractual role

ROLE OVERVIEW

NeGD is seeking an experienced Cloud Architecture Lead to drive cloud strategy, architecture, infrastructure modernization, performance optimization, and cost governance across government digital platforms and e-Governance initiatives. The role combines senior technical leadership with the ability to prepare, review, and evaluate complex technical RFPs, tenders, and Statements of Work (SoWs).

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

Cloud Architecture & Infrastructure Strategy

- Define cloud architecture standards, reference architectures, and infrastructure best practices for government digital platforms.
- Design secure, scalable, resilient, and highly available solutions across AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform.
- Evaluate cloud-native, hybrid-cloud, multi-cloud, and on-premises deployment models againstbusiness, security, compliance, and cost requirements.
- Guide infrastructure modernization, application migration, disaster recovery, business continuity, and capacity planning.
- Apply the AI Development Life Cycle (AIDLC) to assess and guide cloud architecture requirements, infrastructure readiness, scalability, deployment, and lifecycle optimization for AI-enabled government platforms.

Cloud Cost Optimization & FinOps
- Lead cost optimization across compute, storage, databases, networking, managed services, and licensing.
- Establish FinOps practices, cost allocation models, tagging standards, budgets, and usage-monitoring mechanisms.
- Identify savings throughrightsizing, autoscaling, reservedcapacity, storage lifecycle management, and workload optimization.
- Review cloud bills,identify resource wastage,and establish measurable cost-reduction targets withoutcompromising security, availability, or performance.
- Develop cost forecasts, total cost of ownership (TCO) models, and comparative cost analyses.

Complex RFP, Tender & Technical Evaluation
- Lead preparation and review of complex RFPs,technical specifications,



SoWs,and procurement documents for cloud infrastructure, managed services, data centres, and platform modernization.
- Translaterequirements into measurable technical specifications, SLAs,KPIs, service credits,acceptance criteria, and implementation milestones.
- Develop eligibility criteria, technical evaluation frameworks, compliance matrices, scoringmethodologies, and bidder response templates.
- Assess vendor proposals, solution architectures, cloud sizing, commercial assumptions, and cost estimates.
- Support pre-bid meetings,clarification responses, technicalpresentations, proof-of-concept evaluations, and technical committee proceedings.
- Identify vendor lock-in, hidden cost components, ambiguous scope, operational risks, and non-compliance.

Cloud Governance, Security & Operations
- Establish cloud governance frameworks, architecture reviewprocesses, configuration baselines, and operational standards.
- Ensure alignment with applicable Government of India cloudpolicies, MeitY guidelines, CERT-In directions, and relevant security requirements.
- Oversee monitoring, observability, backup, disaster recovery, incident management, and performance optimization.
- Define cloud service SLAs, operational dashboards, and governance reporting.

Leadership & Stakeholder Management
- Guide project teams, implementation partners, cloud service providers, and system integrators.
- Coordinate with government departments, ministries, procurement, finance, and security stakeholders.
- Review architecture proposals, implementation plans, audit observations, and technical deliverables.
- Present recommendations, risk assessments, cost-benefit analyses, and technology decisions to senior management.

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS & EXPERIENCE
- Bachelor’s degree in computer science,



Information Technology, Engineering, or a relateddiscipline; relevant postgraduate qualifications are desirable.
- 12-18+ years of experience in IT infrastructure, cloud architecture, platform engineering, or enterprise technology.
- Significant experience designing and governing production-grade cloud environments on AWS, Azure, and/or GCP.
- Proven experience in cloud cost optimization, capacity planning, TCO analysis, and infrastructure budgeting.
- Demonstratedexperience preparing or evaluating complexRFPs, government tenders,technical proposals, and vendor submissions.
- Experiencewith large-scale digitalplatforms, public-sector projects, or mission-critical enterprise systems is highly desirable.

TECHNICAL SKILLS

- AWS, Microsoft Azure, and/or Google Cloud Platform.
- Cloud networking, IAM, compute, storage, databases, Kubernetes, containers, and infrastructure as code.
- Cloud cost management, FinOps, budgeting, and optimization tools.
- High availability, disaster recovery, business continuity, monitoring, and observability.
- Architecture documentation, technical evaluation matrices, SLAs, and procurement specifications.

KEY COMPETENCIES

- Robust architectural judgement and problem-solving skills.
- Excellent technical writing, RFP drafting, and evaluation capabilities.
- Ability to challenge vendor proposals and validate technical and commercial assumptions.
- Strong stakeholder management, analytical thinking, and decision-making.
- Ability to balance security, performance, scalability, compliance, and cost.

EXPECTED OUTCOMES

- Standardized and resilient cloud architecture practices.
- Measurable cloud cost optimization and improved infrastructure utilization.
- High-quality, technically robust, and vendor-neutral RFPs and evaluation frameworks.
- Improved cloud governance, operational efficiency, and service reliability.

Common expectation: The role requires independent assessment of complextechnology proposals and the abilityto balance technical suitability, security, compliance, lifecycle costs, scalability, and long-term sustainability.

📌 Cloud Architecture Lead (New Delhi)
🏢 National e Governance Division
📍 New Delhi