VikingCloud
Website:
vikingcloud.com
Job details:
Vice President, Technology
Department: Technology
Location: Vadodara, India. Office based
Working hours: 4:30 p.m. to 1:30 a.m. IST, Monday to Friday
Role overview
The Vice President, Technology leads VikingCloud's internal technology organization from our India operation. The role owns the technology estate the business runs on: corporate infrastructure and servers, hosted and cloud production infrastructure, identity and access, endpoints, the corporate application estate, and IT service management.
This is a build role as much as a run role. VikingCloud is consolidating an estate that has grown through acquisition, migrating workloads to the cloud, and standing up enterprise service management. The person in this role will run services to a measurable standard while delivering that change, and will lead a team that spans India and the onshore Corporate IT function.
Owned by this role
- Corporate infrastructure, servers, and virtualization
- Hosted and cloud production infrastructure, including Google Cloud and AWS
- Corporate cloud tenancy, identity, and cost management
- Endpoint management, MDM, and IT support operations
- IT service management platform and service performance
- Corporate application estate, licensing, and consolidation
Owned elsewhere
- Product engineering and application development, owned by Engineering
- Product architecture and release management, owned by Engineering
- Security policy, threat detection, and response, owned by the Security function
- Customer security assessments and QSA work, owned by Compliance
- HR, Finance, and Sales system configuration, owned by those functions
- Direct commercial ownership of customer accounts, owned by Sales
Key responsibilities
Technology strategy and executive ownership
- Set and execute the internal technology strategy in alignment with core business objectives.
- Serve as the executive owner of the technology roadmap and the prioritization of initiatives within it.
- Provide executive reporting on roadmap, delivery, service performance, and risk.
- Lead the evaluation, adoption, and governance of emerging technologies, with attention to security, privacy, and compliance.
- Review the current MCP integration landscape, define the scope for transitioning operational ownership to the technology function, and agree immediate access, monitoring, and resource planning.
- Coordinate with project management on milestones and key deliverables across the portfolio.
Leadership and team building
- Lead and develop the India-based technology teams and the onshore Corporate IT team as a single function.
- Build capability through hiring, cross-training, and named backup ownership, removing single-person dependencies across critical services.
- Move the function from reactive ticket handling to a measured service operation with documented ownership and published procedures.
- Foster a culture of accountability, delivery, and teamwork across geographies and time zones.
- Establish technology policies, standards, and governance, maintained on a published review cycle.
Infrastructure, hosting, and resilience
- Own the server estate, which is predominantly Linux, together with Windows Server, including virtualization on VMware or Hyper-V, and hybrid infrastructure.
- Own hosted and cloud production infrastructure, including availability, performance, resilience, and scalability.
- Own the network estate across all locations, including switching, routing, firewalls, wireless, VPN, and internet leased line connectivity.
- Own business continuity and disaster recovery planning, testing, and execution.
- Lead asset lifecycle management covering procurement, deployment, inventory, and decommissioning.
Cloud infrastructure and cost
- Govern the cloud footprint across Google Cloud and AWS, including landing zone standards, identity services, and cloud security posture.
- Complete the migration away from legacy hosting and set consistent standards for how new workloads are provisioned.
- Apply cost management and FinOps discipline to cloud and software spend, with visibility leadership can act on.
- Maintain a clear operating boundary between this function's cloud ownership and Engineering and DevOps cloud ownership.
Consolidation and rationalization
- Audit the global technology estate, identify overlapping platforms and tool sprawl, and deliver a consolidation program.
- Lead migration planning, data migration, and stakeholder management for teams attached to incumbent tools.
- Drive license optimization and cost reduction across the software and infrastructure estate.
IT service management
- Implement and mature an enterprise service management platform, including workflows, escalation paths, service level configuration, and reporting.
- Define service levels and performance measures for support globally, and report performance to executive stakeholders.
- Drive adoption across the employee base through training and change management.
- Build automation and self-service to reduce ticket volume and improve the employee experience.
Security, compliance, and audit
- Implement and enforce technology controls across endpoints, identity, network, and cloud.
- Manage identity and access management, joiner, mover, and leaver workflows, single sign-on, and role-based access control.
- Implement and evidence the technology controls required for PCI DSS, ISO 27001, SOC 2, and NIST-aligned frameworks, to the direction of the Security and Compliance functions.
- Own the working relationship with cybersecurity leadership for remediation and process implementation.
- Lead the technology response during security incidents, under the incident command of the Security function.
- Support audits and regional regulatory requirements, including GDPR and Indian data protection requirements.
Service delivery and stakeholders
- Operate a support model that serves the Americas, EMEA, and APAC to a consistent standard, including cover for critical incidents outside standard hours.
- Act as the escalation point for complex, sensitive, or high-impact issues.
- Build credible working relationships with senior stakeholders across regions and functions, and communicate fluently at executive level.
Vendor and commercial management
- Manage technology vendors, contracts, and service providers, holding them to agreed performance.
- Own the technology budget, lead cost optimization, and build business cases for strategic investment.
- Evaluate and negotiate technology spend with key stakeholders, with the financial literacy to defend the position.
Required qualifications
- Bachelor's degree or higher in information technology, computer science, engineering, or a related discipline. This is a mandatory requirement. Applications without a completed degree will not be progressed.
- 15+ years of progressive technology leadership.
- 6+ years at Head of IT, Director level, or above, including managing managers.
- Proven accountability for both corporate IT and hosted or production infrastructure. Candidates who have owned only one of the two will not meet the bar.
- Personal delivery of at least one estate consolidation or major platform migration, from business case through to live service.
- Experience building and leading distributed teams across multiple geographies and cultures, with prior management of teams of 15 or more.
- Hands-on depth in server management, with primary strength in Linux, together with Windows Server, virtualization, and hybrid infrastructure.
- Hands-on depth in enterprise networking, including switching, routing, firewalls, wireless, and wide area connectivity.
- Strong background in secure architecture and cloud infrastructure across Google Cloud and AWS, including resilience and identity services.
- Experience delivering a systems consolidation or rationalization program, including software rationalization and platform migration.
- Experience implementing an enterprise IT service management platform end to end, such as Jira Service Management, ServiceNow, or Freshservice, covering workflow design, service level configuration, reporting, and adoption.
- In-depth knowledge of PCI DSS, ISO 27001, and SOC 2, with proven ability to navigate audit and compliance processes.
- Deep working knowledge of Microsoft Entra environments and Microsoft 365 services.
- Strong financial literacy, with the ability to evaluate and negotiate technology spend.
Preferred qualifications
- Experience in a cybersecurity, compliance, or regulated technology business.
- CISSP, CISM, CISA, PCI QSA, or a relevant cloud architecture or security certification.
- Experience integrating technology estates following acquisition.
- Familiarity with ITIL and NIST frameworks.
- Experience with FinOps practices and cloud cost governance at scale.
- Exposure to automation and AI applied to technology operations.
Working arrangements
- This is an office-based role at the VikingCloud office in Vadodara.
- Standard working hours are 4:30 p.m. to 1:30 a.m. IST, Monday to Friday. This window is a requirement of the role and provides overlap with both EMEA and US business hours.
- The Company may vary working hours to meet business requirements. Working arrangements are reviewed periodically following confirmation of appointment.
- On-call availability for critical incidents outside standard hours.
- Occasional international travel may be required to support regional teams and stakeholders.
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