Manager - Cloud Data Platform Operations

About Northern Trust

As a global leader in innovative wealth management, asset servicing, asset management and banking services, Northern Trust (Nasdaq: NTRS) is proud to guide the world’s most successful individuals, families, corporations and institutions.

Since 1889, we have aligned our efforts with our three guiding Principles That Endure: Service, Expertise, and Integrity. Together, they reflect the three cornerstones of business conduct which we strive to instill in our employees, whom we call partners, and to provide to our clients and the communities we serve worldwide.

With more than 135 years of financial experience and over 24,000 partners, we serve the world’s most sophisticated clients using leading technology and exceptional service.

Position Overview

The Manager, Cloud Data Platform Operations is responsible for the operational management, reliability, security, governance, and continuous improvement of enterprise cloud data platforms, with primary ownership of Snowflake, Databricks, and other cloud data services. The role leads a team of platform engineers and operations specialists to deliver highly available, secure, scalable, and cost-efficient data services supporting analytics, AI/ML, business intelligence, and enterprise data initiatives.

This position serves as the primary operational leader for cloud data platforms, driving service excellence, operational governance, platform stability, stakeholder engagement, and executive reporting. The role is accountable for providing leadership with actionable operational insights, platform health metrics, risk assessments, capacity forecasts, and service performance reviews to support strategic decision-making.

Key Responsibilities

Platform Operations & Service Ownership

• Own end-to-end operational support for Snowflake, Databricks, and other cloud data services.
• Ensure platform availability, performance, reliability, scalability, and operational stability.
• Lead Incident, Problem, Change, Capacity, and Availability Management processes.
• Establish operational standards, runbooks, support procedures, and service management frameworks.
• Drive operational readiness for platform upgrades, releases, and new service deployments.
• Ensure adherence to enterprise security, governance, compliance, and risk management requirements.

Reliability Engineering & Operational Excellence

• Define, measure, and report platform SLAs, SLOs, and operational KPIs.
• Lead major incident management, root cause analysis, and continuous service improvement initiatives.
• Drive automation and self-healing capabilities to improve operational efficiency and reduce manual intervention.
• Partner with engineering and architecture teams to enhance platform resiliency, performance, and scalability.
• Ensure disaster recovery, backup, and business continuity strategies are regularly tested and maintained.

Executive Reporting & Operational Metrics

• Develop and present monthly and quarterly operational reviews to senior leadership.
• Create executive dashboards and scorecards covering:
  • Platform Availability & Uptime
  • Service Health & Incident Trends
  • MTTR (Mean Time to Resolution)
  • SLA/SLO Compliance
  • Capacity & Performance Utilization
  • Platform Adoption & Consumption Trends
  • Cost & Resource Optimization
  • Security & Compliance Metrics
  • Support Backlog & Service Request Metrics
  • Customer Satisfaction Metrics

• Provide actionable recommendations based on operational trends, risks, and business needs.

Stakeholder & Vendor Management

• Build strong partnerships with Data Engineering, Architecture, Security, Infrastructure, Analytics, and Business teams.
• Act as the operational escalation point for critical service issues.
• Manage relationships with strategic platform vendors including Snowflake, and Databricks.
• Drive customer-focused service improvements and operational maturity initiatives.

People Leadership

• Lead, mentor, and develop a high-performing Cloud Data Platform Operations organisation.
• Establish team objectives, performance expectations, and development plans.
• Support talent acquisition, succession planning, and capability development.
• Foster a culture of accountability, innovation, collaboration, and operational excellence.

Qualifications

Education & Experience:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Data Engineering, or related field (Master’s preferred).
• 10+ years of experience in data engineering, cloud engineering, or platform engineering with 15+ years of total work experience, including Azure and/or AWS environments.
• 5+ years of leadership experience managing Platform Engineering, DevOps, Infrastructure, or Operations Teams.
• Proven experience managing enterprise-scale cloud data platforms, specifically:
  • Snowflake
  • Databricks
  • Other Data Platform services
• Strong experience leading ITIL service management functions, including Incident, Problem, Change, and Service Request Management.
• Experience building and presenting executive operational dashboards and service reviews.
• Proven track record of driving platform reliability, operational transformation, and automation initiatives.
• Experience managing globally distributed teams and complex enterprise environments.
• Hands-on experience with at least one major cloud provider (AWS or Azure) and Cloud Data Services.
• Experience with big data and data processing frameworks (e.g., Spark, Databricks, Flink).
• Expertise in building data pipelines with tools like Apache Airflow, dbt, Kafka, or similar.

Skills & Competencies:

• In-depth knowledge and experience with Snowflake, Databricks, or similar cloud data platforms.
• Extensive knowledge and real hands-on experience on Github terraform pipelines and objects deployment management.
• Extensive knowledge and real hands-on experience of AI/ML data pipelines and feature engineering.
• Exposure to regulated environments (financial services, healthcare, etc.).
• Proficiency in terraform, SQL and one or more programming languages (Python, Java, or Scala).
• Deep understanding of cloud-native data services (e.g., AWS Redshift, Glue, S3, Athena; Azure Synapse, Data Factory; GCP BigQuery, Dataflow).
• Familiarity with containerization and orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes).
• Experience with infrastructure-as-code (Terraform, CloudFormation, Pulumi).
• Knowledge of FinOps principles for cost-efficient data platform design.
• Strong problem-solving, communication, and cross-functional collaboration skills.
• Excellent communication, mentorship, and ability to influence cross-functional teams.

Key Success Metrics

• Snowflake, Databricks, and Microsoft Fabric platforms consistently achieve reliability and performance targets.
• Executive leadership receives timely, accurate, and actionable operational insights.
• Reduced service disruptions, lower operational risk, and improved customer experience.
• Increased automation, operational efficiency, and service maturity.
• High-performing teams delivering resilient, secure, and scalable data platform
• Reduced data incidents and faster root‑cause resolution.
• Improved developer productivity through reusable frameworks and standards.
• Strong technical mentorship and uplift of data engineering capabilities.
• Trusted technical advisor to architecture, security, and business leadership.

Working with Us

As a Northern Trust partner, you will be part of a flexible and collaborative work culture, which has a strong history of financial strength and stability. Movement within the organization is encouraged, senior leaders are accessible, and you can take pride in working for a company committed to an inclusive workplace and assisting the communities we serve.

Philanthropy is deeply rooted in Northern Trust’s history and is an essential element of our culture. Employees around the world give their time and talent to work for the greater good of their communities.

Reasonable Accommodation

Northern Trust is committed to working with and providing adjustments to individuals with health conditions and disabilities. If you need a reasonable accommodation for any part of the employment process, please email our HR Service Center at [email protected], or alternatively you can discuss your individual requirements with the recruiter you are working with.

About Our Pune Office

The Northern Trust Pune office, established in 2016, is now home to over 3,000 employees. The office handles various functions, including Operations for Asset Servicing and Wealth Management, as well as delivering critical technology solutions that support business operations across the globe.

Our Pune team takes our commitment to service to heart. In 2024, they volunteered more than 10,000+ hours into the communities where they live and work. Learn more.