Lead DevOps

MetAntz; Hyderabad; On-site; INR 3,500,000 - 7,500,000; Full time

Job summary

Metantz is seeking a senior Lead DevOps expert to shape the technical direction of an engineering organization in a high-growth context. You will drive enterprise-grade cloud architectures, multi-cloud strategies, and a robust IDP initiative, while leading and mentoring large engineering teams across startups and scale-ups.

You will own DevSecOps at scale, define platform SLAs, and guide governance, resilience, and disaster recovery programs with CTO and executive stakeholders.

Qualifications

• 9–14 years of progressive DevOps/SRE/Platform Eng experience with at least 3–4 years in an architect or principal-level role.
• Deep, battle-tested expertise across AWS, GCP, or Azure - including advanced networking, multi-account governance, landing zones, and managed services at scale.
• Proven experience architecting Kubernetes platforms at scale - multi-cluster federation, custom operators, admission controllers, and cluster lifecycle management.
• Mastery of Infrastructure as Code at an organisational scale - Terraform modules, monorepo strategies, policy enforcement, and drift detection.
• Hands‑on experience leading or significantly contributing to a Platform Engineering or IDP initiative.
• Strong background in DevSecOps - integrating security into the SDLC at an architectural level, not as an afterthought.
• Demonstrable track record of leading and growing engineering teams - not just being a strong individual contributor.
• Experience working in or with product startups or scale-ups where speed, pragmatism, and ownership culture matter.

Responsibilities

• Define the long-term infrastructure and platform vision - cloud architecture, DevOps toolchain, and delivery philosophy - aligned with 3–5 year product roadmaps.
• Architect enterprise-grade, multi-cloud or hybrid cloud environments with a focus on resilience, global scale, and operational efficiency.
• Own the technology selection process for infrastructure, DevOps tooling, and observability platforms - evaluating build vs. buy decisions with business context.
• Lead infrastructure modernisation programmes - legacy migration, cloud-native transformation, or monolith-to-microservices transitions at the platform layer.
• Design data infrastructure and pipeline architecture in collaboration with data engineering teams - storage, streaming, and lakehouse patterns.
• Conceptualise and lead the build of a fully-fledged Internal Developer Platform (IDP) - self-service infrastructure, golden paths, and paved roads for engineering teams.
• Define platform SLAs and ensure the IDP becomes a force multiplier for 50–500+ engineers.
• Drive adoption of Platform Engineering as a product discipline within the organisation.
• Own the developer experience (DevEx) strategy - reducing cognitive load, improving local dev environments, and standardising tooling across teams.
• Own the enterprise security architecture from a DevSecOps lens - zero-trust networking, identity federation, secrets lifecycle, and vulnerability management at scale.
• Lead regulatory and compliance programmes - SOC2 Type II, ISO 27001, GDPR, or industry-specific standards - with infrastructure as the foundation.
• Establish governance frameworks for cloud resource provisioning, cost accountability, and change management across multiple teams and environments.
• Define and enforce policy as code using tools like OPA, Sentinel, or AWS SCPs across the organisation.
• Define the organisation's reliability engineering philosophy — SLOs, error budgets, and toil reduction targets at a company-wide level.
• Introduce and lead chaos engineering practices — GameDays, failure injection, and resilience testing as a standard part of the engineering lifecycle.
• Own disaster recovery and business continuity planning — RTO, RPO targets, runbook governance, and regular DR drills.
• Architect global traffic management and failover strategies for multi-region production systems.
• Build and lead DevOps, Platform Engineering teams - hiring, structuring, and growing 5–20 person teams from early-stage to maturity.
• Act as the principal technical voice in CTO and board-level conversations on infrastructure investment, risk, and capability building.
• Define career ladders, competency frameworks, and growth paths for DevOps and SRE engineers across the organisation.
• Partner with product, engineering, and finance leadership to align infrastructure spend with business outcomes - FinOps at a strategic level.

Skills

AWS/GCP/Azure

Kubernetes platforms

Infrastructure as Code

DevSecOps

Leadership / mentoring

Startup experience

Tools

Terraform

IDP tooling

OPA/Sentinel

AWS SCPs

Job description

About This Opportunity

Metantz partners with some of Bangalore's most ambitious product startups and scale-ups to place senior technical leaders who can drive transformational change. We are sourcing seasoned Lead DevOps experts for high-growth companies where infrastructure isn't a support function - it's a strategic differentiator. If you've spent years in the trenches, have the scars to prove it, and are now ready to shape the technical direction of an entire engineering organisation - this is the role for you.

About This Opportunity

Metantz partners with some of Bangalore's most ambitious product startups and scale-ups to place senior technical leaders who can drive transformational change. We are sourcing seasoned Lead DevOps experts for high-growth companies where infrastructure isn't a support function - it's a strategic differentiator. If you've spent years in the trenches, have the scars to prove it, and are now ready to shape the technical direction of an entire engineering organisation - this is the role for you.

What You'll Be Doing

Architecture & Technical Strategy

• Define the long-term infrastructure and platform vision - cloud architecture, DevOps toolchain, and delivery philosophy - aligned with 3–5 year product roadmaps
• Architect enterprise-grade, multi-cloud or hybrid cloud environments with a focus on resilience, global scale, and operational efficiency
• Own the technology selection process for infrastructure, DevOps tooling, and observability platforms - evaluating build vs. buy decisions with business context
• Lead infrastructure modernisation programmes - legacy migration, cloud-native transformation, or monolith-to-microservices transitions at the platform layer
• Design data infrastructure and pipeline architecture in collaboration with data engineering teams - storage, streaming, and lakehouse patterns

Platform Engineering & Developer Experience

• Conceptualise and lead the build of a fully-fledged Internal Developer Platform (IDP) - self-service infrastructure, golden paths, and paved roads for engineering teams
• Define platform SLAs and ensure the IDP becomes a force multiplier for 50–500+ engineers
• Drive adoption of Platform Engineering as a product discipline within the organisation
• Own the developer experience (DevEx) strategy - reducing cognitive load, improving local dev environments, and standardising tooling across teams

Security, Governance & Compliance

• Own the enterprise security architecture from a DevSecOps lens - zero-trust networking, identity federation, secrets lifecycle, and vulnerability management at scale
• Lead regulatory and compliance programmes - SOC2 Type II, ISO 27001, GDPR, or industry-specific standards - with infrastructure as the foundation
• Establish governance frameworks for cloud resource provisioning, cost accountability, and change management across multiple teams and environments
• Define and enforce policy as code using tools like OPA, Sentinel, or AWS SCPs across the organisation

Reliability & Chaos Engineering

• Define the organisation's reliability engineering philosophy — SLOs, error budgets, and toil reduction targets at a company-wide level
• Introduce and lead chaos engineering practices — GameDays, failure injection, and resilience testing as a standard part of the engineering lifecycle
• Own disaster recovery and business continuity planning — RTO, RPO targets, runbook governance, and regular DR drills
• Architect global traffic management and failover strategies for multi-region production systems

Leadership, Mentorship & Org Building

• Build and lead DevOps, Platform Engineering teams - hiring, structuring, and growing 5–20 person teams from early-stage to maturity
• Act as the principal technical voice in CTO and board-level conversations on infrastructure investment, risk, and capability building
• Define career ladders, competency frameworks, and growth paths for DevOps and SRE engineers across the organisation
• Partner with product, engineering, and finance leadership to align infrastructure spend with business outcomes - FinOps at a strategic level
• Represent the company in technical communities, conferences, and open-source ecosystems to attract top talent and build brand credibility

What We're Looking For

Must-Have

• 9–14 years of progressive experience in DevOps, SRE, or Platform Engineering with at least 3–4 years in an architect or principal-level role
• Deep, battle-tested expertise across AWS, GCP, or Azure - including advanced networking, multi-account governance, landing zones, and managed services at scale
• Proven experience architecting Kubernetes platforms at scale - multi-cluster federation, custom operators, admission controllers, and cluster lifecycle management
• Mastery of Infrastructure as Code at an organisational scale - Terraform modules, monorepo strategies, policy enforcement, and drift detection
• Hands‑on experience leading or significantly contributing to a Platform Engineering or IDP initiative
• Strong background in DevSecOps - integrating security into the SDLC at an architectural level, not as an afterthought
• Demonstrable track record of leading and growing engineering teams - not just being a strong individual contributor
• Experience working in or with product startups or scale-ups where speed, pragmatism, and ownership culture matter

Good to Have

• Multi-cloud architecture experience with a real production use case - not just theoretical knowledge
• Experience with eBPF-based networking or observability (Cilium, Tetragon, Pixie)
• Hands‑on contributions to open‑source projects in the CNCF or broader DevOps ecosystem
• Exposure to AI, ML infrastructure - GPU clusters, model serving infrastructure, MLOps pipelines, or LLMOps
• Prior experience as a founding engineer or Head of Infrastructure at a startup
• Published technical writing, conference talks, or a recognised community presence

What Makes a Strong Candidate

• You think in systems and second-order effects - you anticipate how today's architecture decision affects the team two years from now
• You've built organisations, not just systems - you know that the best infrastructure is only as good as the team maintaining it
• You can translate infrastructure complexity into business language - risk, cost, speed, and reliability framed for non-technical stakeholders
• You have strong opinions, loosely held - you advocate for your architecture but adapt when the context changes
• You've navigated high-growth chaos - you know what "good enough for now" looks like and when to pay down technical debt
• You leave things better than you found them - teams, codebases, runbooks, and culture

What's In It For You

• Architect-level roles at Series A to Series C product companies with real engineering scale challenges
• Direct partnership with CTOs, VPs of Engineering, and founding teams - your decisions will matter
• Equity participation at companies with strong growth trajectories
• Opportunity to build teams and shape culture - not just maintain infrastructure
• Access to Metantz's exclusive network of 50+ innovative startups across Bangalore and beyond
• Competitive, market-leading compensation benchmarked against top product companies