Senior Manager Cloud Operations

Position Overview 

The Senior Manager, Cloud Operations is responsible for managing a portfolio of projects within a product suite, driving execution across diverse teams, and ensuring alignment with business objectives. This role acts as a critical bridge between development and product teams, addressing technical and operational gaps to optimize processes and improve collaboration. The TPM ensures that technical solutions align with product strategies while maintaining a focus on delivery excellence. Additionally, the role demands expertise in organizational change management (OCM) to ensure smooth transitions during project implementation and foster the adoption of new processes and technologies. Strong financial acumen, including budgeting, forecasting, and resource management, is essential. 
  

Key Responsibilities

Portfolio Management 

• Oversee a portfolio of projects within a defined product suite, ensuring alignment with organizational goals and priorities.
• Manage multiple concurrent projects, balancing resources and schedules to deliver high-quality outcomes.
• Establish project objectives, timelines, deliverables, and success metrics across the portfolio.

Stakeholder Collaboration 

• Collaborate closely with product managers, engineering teams, and COE leads to define project scope, milestones, and technical feasibility.
•  Foster clear and continuous communication across teams, ensuring alignment on project goals, priorities, and progress.
•  Clear and concise communication and reporting with Executive teams and Stakeholders, ensuring visibility of project status, risks, and key milestones.
• Bridge technical and operational gaps between development and product teams, fostering better alignment, optimized workflows, and stronger collaboration.
• Act as a liaison between onshore and COE teams to ensure seamless execution and delivery.

Center of Excellence (COE) Oversight 

• Provide hands-on leadership to COE teams, ensuring clear understanding of tasks, priorities, and deadlines.
• Monitor and manage COE team performance, identifying and resolving challenges to maintain project momentum.
• Build strong relationships with COE leads, fostering a collaborative and results-driven environment. 

 Organizational Change Management (OCM) 

• Plan and execute change management strategies to ensure successful adoption of new technologies, systems, and processes.
• Develop communication plans, stakeholder engagement strategies, and training programs to address resistance and drive user adoption.
• Assess organizational readiness and lead initiatives to prepare teams for upcoming changes.
• Familiarity with IT, Development, Product, and Business Operations (Finance, Accounting, Procurement, Legal, HR) to ensure comprehensive change management strategies that address diverse organizational needs.
• Track and report OCM progress, identifying areas for improvement and recommending solutions.

Financial Management 

• Financial management skills, including tracking actuals vs. spend, managing multi-year cash flow, budgeting, and demonstrating an understanding of financial models and forecasting using Excel.
• Ensure financial accountability by providing accurate and timely financial reports and ROI evaluations for projects. 

Resource Management

• Optimize resource allocation across the portfolio to maximize efficiency and delivery outcomes.
• Collaborate with team leads to ensure appropriate staffing and skills alignment for project needs.
• Anticipate future resource requirements and proactively address gaps to maintain project momentum.

Project Execution

• Develop and manage project plans for all initiatives, outlining scope, timelines, milestones, and deliverables.
• Identify project dependencies, risks, and mitigation strategies, keeping stakeholders informed of potential challenges and solutions.
• Ensure all projects adhere to governance, quality standards, and best practices throughout the lifecycle. 

Technical Collaboration & Deployment 

• Partner with engineering and development teams to deliver robust and scalable solutions within the product suite.
• Support DevOps practices, infrastructure upgrades, and Public/Private cloud integrations as part of project execution.
• Oversee testing, implementation, and initial support phases to ensure smooth deployment and handover.
• Identify and address operational inefficiencies and gaps, aligning development processes with product team requirements to enhance delivery outcomes.

Continuous Improvement 

• Conduct post-project evaluations to identify lessons learned and recommend process improvements for future initiatives.
• Advocate for process optimization and efficiency improvements across the portfolio, incorporating feedback from stakeholders and teams. 

SaaS Environment

• Experience working in a SaaS environment with large-scale cloud deployments.
• Familiarity with observability and monitoring tools such as Prometheus, Grafana, or Datadog.
• Knowledge of compliance frameworks such as SOC 2, ISO 27001, CMMC or GDPR.

  
Qualifications

Experience: 

• Proven track record of managing portfolios of projects within a product suite, delivering large-scale technical initiatives.
• Demonstrated experience leading Center of Excellence (COE) teams, with hands-on involvement in managing global project execution.
• Expertise in organizational change management planning and execution, including communication, training, and stakeholder engagement.
• Strong background in program management for software development, infrastructure, and Public/Private cloud technologies. 

Skills:

• Advanced knowledge of OCM best practices, including readiness assessments, resistance management, and adoption tracking.
• Financial management expertise, including actuals vs. spend tracking, multi-year cash flow, budgeting, and financial modeling/forecasting using Excel.
• Strong resource management capabilities to optimize staffing and ensure delivery excellence.
• Clear and concise communication skills for executive reporting and stakeholder engagement.
• Advanced understanding of Agile, Scrum, and traditional project management methodologies. 

Technical Knowledge: 

• Familiarity with DevOps pipelines, Public/Private cloud platforms, and tools such as Jira, MS Project, or ServiceNow.
• Knowledge of containerization (Docker, Kubernetes) and modern software development practices is a plus. 

Education: 

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field. PMP, Agile, or equivalent certifications are preferred.