Senior Manager — Central Cloud Operations Cloud Infrastructure, Engineering & Governance EXPERIENCE 12–15 Years FUNCTION Central Cloud Operations REPORTS TO Head / Director, Cloud Engg. TEAM SIZE Multi-tower, managers + leads About the role: We are seeking a Senior Manager to lead the Central Cloud Operations function, owning the architecture, governance, and day-to-day operational health of a large, multi-cloud estate spanning Azure, AWS, and GCP. The ideal candidate brings deep, hands-on mastery of one primary cloud platform along with working fluency across the other two, and is equally comfortable architecting large-scale infrastructure as they are managing teams, stakeholders, and governance frameworks at an enterprise scale. This is a leadership role for someone who is self-driven, decisive under ambiguity, and credible in front of senior leadership In this role, you will: Key Responsibilities Cloud Architecture & Engineering •Own the design and architectural review of large-scale, highly available cloud infrastructure, applying Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF) and Well-Architected Framework (WAF) principles across reliability, security, cost, and operational excellence pillars. •Provide architectural direction on landing zones, network topology, identity design, and workload placement decisions across the primary CSP and secondary platforms. •Act as the escalation point and final technical authority for complex, cross-cloud design decisions within the operations function. Migration & Large-Scale Delivery •Lead large-scale cloud migration and modernization programs — discovery, wave planning, execution, and cutover — minimizing business disruption and tracking against defined RTO/RPO and performance benchmarks. •Evaluate and select the right migration pattern (rehost, replatform, refactor) per workload, balancing cost, risk, and timeline. •Manage solution providers, system integrators, and OEM/CSP partners to ensure delivery commitments are met against agreed SLAs. Security, Risk & Governance •Establish and maintain cloud security standards aligned to industry frameworks (CIS Benchmarks, NIST, ISO 27001) and Zero Trust principles across identity, network, and data layers. •Own governance frameworks — RACI structures, policy-as-code guardrails, access reviews, and remediation SLAs — across a large multi-account/subscription/project estate. •Partner with Security, Risk, and Compliance teams to drive closure of CSPM findings and audit observations, and to keep the organization's cloud security posture continuously improving, not just compliant at a point in time.



Operations & Cost Governance •Own operational health of the cloud estate — availability, incident management, capacity planning, and continuous improvement of run-books and automation. •Drive FinOps discipline: cost visibility, chargeback/showback, rightsizing, and commitment-based discount strategy across the estate. •Champion Infrastructure-as-Code, DevOps practices, and CI/CD maturity across the operations organization to reduce manual change and configuration drift. Leadership & Stakeholder Management •Build, mentor, and manage a multi-layered team of managers, architects, and engineers, setting clear goals and growing technical and leadership capability within the team. •Represent Cloud Operations in front of senior leadership and client/business stakeholders, translating technical risk and roadmap into business-relevant narratives. Drive cross-functional alignment with Enterprise Architecture, Security, Corporate IT, and business unit stakeholders on priorities, roadmaps, and governance decisions. What you must have to be considered •12–15 years of progressive experience in cloud infrastructure, operations, or architecture roles, with at least 4–5 years in a people/delivery management capacity. •Deep, hands-on expertise in one primary hyperscaler (Azure, AWS, or GCP), with demonstrable working knowledge of the other two — able to converse credibly and make decisions across all three. •Strong grounding in CAF and WAF (or the AWS/GCP equivalents) and demonstrated application of these frameworks in real architecture decisions, not just familiarity with the terminology. •Proven track record designing and architecting large-scale, resilient infrastructure, and leading large migration/modernization programs (500+ workloads or equivalent scale). •Solid understanding of cloud security standards, IAM/governance models, and policy-as- code/guardrail-driven operations in a large, multi-account cloud estate. •Experience managing solution providers, system integrators, or outsourced delivery partners against SLAs and commercial commitments. •Demonstrated people management experience — managing managers or senior leads, not just individual contributors — with a track record of team growth and retention. •Executive-level communication skills,



with experience presenting technical risk, roadmaps, and business cases to senior leadership or client stakeholders. •Self-driven and comfortable operating with a high degree of autonomy and ambiguity, in a large, complex, matrixed organization. Preferred Certifications •Architect/Qualified-level certification in the primary CSP — e.g., Azure Solutions Architect Expert, AWS Solutions Architect Professional, or Google Professional Cloud Architect. •Associate or Practitioner-level certification in at least one of the secondary cloud platforms, demonstrating cross-cloud fluency beyond the primary stack. •A security credential such as CISSP, CCSP, or equivalent, supporting the governance and risk- ownership aspects of the role. •ITIL Foundation or equivalent service-management certification, relevant to running operations at scale. Preferred Tools & Technologies •Infrastructure-as-Code & Automation: Terraform, Bicep/ARM Templates, AWS CloudFormation, Ansible. •CI/CD & Source Control: Git, Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions, Jenkins, Cloud Build. •Containers & Orchestration: Docker, Kubernetes (AKS/EKS/GKE). •Cloud Security Posture & Governance: Prisma Cloud, Microsoft Defender for Cloud, AWS Security Hub, Security Command Center. •Monitoring & Observability: Azure Monitor, Amazon CloudWatch, Google Cloud Monitoring, Datadog, Splunk. •Cost Management / FinOps: Azure Cost Management, AWS Cost Explorer, GCP Billing, CloudHealth or Apptio Cloudability. •ITSM & Collaboration: ServiceNow, Jira, and familiarity with GRC/audit tooling is an advantage, particularly for candidates from regulated-industry backgrounds. Work model: We believe hybrid work is the way forward as we strive to provide flexibility wherever possible. Based on this role’s business requirements, this is a hybrid position requiring 2-3 days a week in a client or Cognizant office in Pune/Hyderabad/Kolkata/Bangalore/Coimbatore. Regardless of your working arrangement, we are here to support a healthy work-life balance though our various wellbeing programs. The working arrangements for this role are accurate as of the date of posting. This may change based on the project you’re engaged in, as well as business and client requirements. Rest assured; we will always be clear about role expectations. We're excited to meet people who share our mission and can make an impact in a variety of ways. Don't hesitate to apply, even if you only meet the minimum requirements listed. Think about your transferable experiences and unique skills that make you stand out as someone who can bring new and exciting things to this role.

📌 Central Cloud Operations - SM Level (India)
🏢 People First Consultants
📍 India