Cloud Architecture Lead

Cloud Architecture Lead

Seniority: Senior Leadership / Technical Lead

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

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 against business, 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 through rightsizing, autoscaling, reserved capacity, storage lifecycle management, and workload optimization.
• Review cloud bills, identify resource wastage, and establish measurable cost-reduction targets without compromising 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.
• Translate requirements into measurable technical specifications, SLAs, KPIs, service credits, acceptance criteria, and implementation milestones.
• Develop eligibility criteria, technical evaluation frameworks, compliance matrices, scoring methodologies, and bidder response templates.
• Assess vendor proposals, solution architectures, cloud sizing, commercial assumptions, and cost estimates.
• Support pre-bid meetings, clarification responses, technical presentations, 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 review processes, configuration baselines, and operational standards.
• Ensure alignment with applicable Government of India cloud policies, 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

• Bachelors degree in computer science, Information Technology, Engineering, or a related discipline; 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.
• Demonstrated experience preparing or evaluating complex RFPs, government tenders, technical proposals, and vendor submissions.
• Experience with large-scale digital platforms, 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

• Strong 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 complex technology proposals and the ability to balance technical suitability, security, compliance, lifecycle costs, scalability, and long-term sustainability.