VP Application Modernization & Cloud Engineering Lead (L12)

Job Description: Role Title : Application Modernization & Cloud Engineering Lead (L12) Company Overview : Synchrony (NYSE: SYF) is a premier consumer financial services company delivering one of the industry’s most complete digitally enabled product suites. Our experience, expertise and scale encompass a broad spectrum of industries including digital, health and wellness, retail, telecommunications, home, auto, outdoors, pet and more. We have recently been ranked #2 among India’s Best Companies to Work for by Great Place to Work. We were among the Top 50 India’s Best Workplaces in Building a Culture of Innovation by All by GPTW and Top 25 among Best Workplaces in BFSI by GPTW. We have also been recognized by AmbitionBox Employee Choice Awards among the Top 20 Mid-Sized Companies, ranked #3 among Top Rated Companies for Women, and Top-Rated Financial Services Companies. We provide best-in-class employee benefits and programs that cater to work-life integration and overall well-being. We provide career advancement and upskilling opportunities for all to take up leadership roles. Organizational Overview: This role will be part of the Cloud & Platform group part of CTO organization. Cloud team is responsible for the SYF public cloud platform & services. Govern health, performance, capacity, and costs of resources and ensure adherence to service levels. Build well defined processes for cloud application development and service enablement. Role Summary/Purpose: The Application Modernization & Cloud Engineering Lead will serve as a technical and people leader responsible for modernizing enterprise applications and enabling strong cloud engineering and cloud operations practices on AWS. This role requires a blend of modernization architecture, engineering leadership, and hands-on delivery experience to migrate applications to the cloud, transform monolithic systems into scalable microservices-based architectures, and improve reliability through automation and operational excellence. This position acts as a pivotal bridge between application engineering, cloud engineering, information security, DevOps and Agile delivery teams, ensuring technical excellence, operational stability, and scalable cloud adoption aligned with business objectives, regulatory requirements, and evolving technology landscapes. Key Responsibilities: Lead and manage a team of engineers responsible for application modernization, cloud engineering, and cloud operations; drive execution, delivery commitments, and talent development. Own modernization assessments for monolithic Java applications and define phased migration strategies to AWS (rehost/replatform/refactor), including sequencing, risk management, and dependency planning. Lead decommission of monolithic applications into microservices aligned to business domains and bounded contexts; guide API design, service contracts, and integration standards. Provide cloud platform governance, standards, procedures, and automated workflows, focusing on CI/CD, infrastructure as code, automated testing, and auditability. Collaborate across CTO, Engineering, Security, and Business stakeholders to prioritize, plan, and communicate modernization and cloud transformation progress. Responsible for availability, latency, performance, efficiency, monitoring/observability, emergency response, capacity planning, setting and maintaining SLOs, SLIs and Error Budgets, and creating dashboards. Manage site stability, performance, reliability, and maintain uptime for production environments; partner with stakeholders to ensure production readiness and runbooks. Develop and mature a multi-environment observability stack (metrics/logs/traces) and extend it to predict capacity needs based on usage patterns. Strive for automation to reduce toil and increase development velocity (self-service pipelines, standardized templates, reusable patterns). Lead root cause analysis for complex production incidents in distributed Java/microservices environments and drive corrective/preventive actions. Hands-on expertise with design, deploying and troubleshooting cloud services. Qualifications/Requirements: Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field OR equivalent experience. 10–12 years of experience in software engineering / cloud engineering / platform engineering with demonstrated delivery of enterprise modernization initiatives. 3+ years in team leadership responsibilities (people management and/or delivery leadership), including coaching/mentoring engineers and driving outcomes in Agile delivery models. Strong hands-on expertise in Java (e.g., Spring / Spring Boot) and building/operating production services. Proven hands-on experience migrating applications to AWS, including modernization/refactoring where required. Demonstrated experience breaking monolithic applications into microservices, including service boundaries, data separation strategies, and service-to-service communication approaches. Strong experience with containers and orchestration (e.g., Kubernetes/EKS) and cloud-native deployment practices. Strong knowledge of CI/CD platforms and infrastructure as code tools (e.g., Jenkins/GitHub Actions; Terraform/CloudFormation). Experience with observability tools/practices (metrics, logs, traces) and operational best practices for production environments. Strong understanding of cloud security fundamentals (IAM/RBAC, network controls, encryption) and modern authentication/authorization concepts (OAuth2/OIDC). Excellent communication, presentation, and stakeholder management skills with the ability to influence executives and technical teams. Demonstrated ability to manage multiple priorities, navigate ambiguity, and deliver roadmaps that meet business and regulatory needs. Desired Characteristics: Excellent communication, presentation, and stakeholder management skills with the ability to influence executives and technical teams. Demonstrated ability to manage multiple priorities, navigate ambiguity, and deliver roadmaps that meet business and regulatory needs. Eligibility Criteria: Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field OR equivalent experience. 10–12 years of experience in software engineering / cloud engineering / platform engineering with demonstrated delivery of enterprise modernization initiatives. Work Timings: 3PM to 12AM IST This role qualifies for Enhanced Flexibility offered in Synchrony India and will require the incumbent to be available between 06:00 AM Eastern Time – 11:30 AM Eastern Time (timings are anchored to US Eastern hours and will adjust twice a year locally). This window is for meetings with India and US teams. The remaining hours will be flexible for the employee to choose. Exceptions may apply periodically due to business needs) We are proud to offer flexibility at Synchrony. Our way of working allows you the option to work from home or workspaces in our Regional Engagement Hubs—Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Pune, Kolkata, or Delhi/NCR. Occasionally you may be required to commute or travel to Hyderabad or one of the Regional Engagement Hubs for in person engagement activities such as business or team meetings, trainings, and culture events For Internal Applicants : Understand the criteria or mandatory skills required for the role, before applying Inform your manager or HRM before applying for the role on Workday Ensure that your professional profile is updated (fields such as education, prior experience, skills) and it is mandatory to upload your updated resume (Word or PDF format) Must not be any corrective action plan (First Formal/Final Formal, LPP) L10 + Employees who have completed 18 months in the organization and 12 months in current role and level are only eligible L10+ Employees can apply Grade/Level: 12 Job Family Group: Information Technology