Product Development and Maintenance - EduTech Cloud Platform
Worked for Serosoft as Senior Vice President – Engineering. Headed engineering and support of enterprise Cloud / SaaS platform for global EduTech industry.
Project Description
Engineering and support of Cloud/SaaS EduTech product for Student Information System management for global education industries across schools (K12), colleges (Tertiary) and Universities.
Architecture / Technology
Cloud, 3-tier Client/Server, Model View Controller (MVC), Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and RESTful/API architectures. Technologies – Spring, Hibernate, Java, Angular, ExtJS, MySQL, Azure, BitBucket, Jenkins
Client Engagement
Managed clients’ escalations, CSAT, relationship, collaboration, coordination, expectations to deliver best feasible solution.
Escalation Management
Established escalation management process. Devised various communication channels depending on nature and priority of escalations to address them with workaround as well as permanent solutions. Built teams to address escalations through Triage and necessary steps.
Solution Architecture
Collaborated with clients’ business operations; offered solutions; managed scope of work; driven technology solution development and delivery.
Product Management
Collaborated with sales / marketing, customer success, implementation and product management; offered solutions; managed scope of work; helped manage product roadmap; driven technology solution development and delivery.
Program Management
Managed program of multiple Full Life Cycle projects corresponding to multiple modules of the product; managed simultaneous multiple releases corresponding to distinct and conflicting scope of work for various clients; managed planning, execution, monitor and control, closure following Agile/ Scrum/ SAFe methodology. Handled effort estimation, backlog prioritization, scheduling, task allocation, project tracking and monitoring. Completed project on time within budget applying fast tracking and crashing/ compression as and when required. Managed scope creep in collaboration with client, implementation, customer success and product management.
Agile / Scrum / SAFe
Followed scaled agile (SAFe) for managing multiple scrums corresponding to multiple modules of the product. Followed Agile Release Train (ART) methodology for managing multiple releases of various versions for various clients. Managed sprint planning and review with Product Management, Customer Success and Implementation. Managed daily multilevel stand-ups. Managed sprint retrospective for further improvement of whole process and delivery of better quality products.
Delivery Management
Managed scope of work with clients, implementation, customer success, sales/ marketing and product management that needed to be delivered. Managed and driven development and quality teams through delivery processes of engineering, quality assurance and release of multiple versions for various clients. Collaborated with infrastructure for establishing DevOps framework. Collaborated with implementation for managing UAT, followed by deployment in production in collaboration with infrastructure. Managed production support and services within SLA. Most importantly, managed clients’ escalations on priority 24×7 basis.
Engineering Management
Managed, guided and driven development and quality teams through SDLC and STLC – architectural and design decisions, coding and unit testing and integration testing, test planning, test execution, performance (load/ stress) testing, regression testing. Established software engineering best practices – design and coding standards, code review, agile / scrum / SAFe. Established DevOps framework for delivering releases of multiple versions for multiple clients.
Production Support Management
Managed production support of incidents raised by clients across the globe. Built and managed support team to deliver production fixes within SLA. Established processes to maintain delivery rate and SLA breaches within permissible limit. Guided team for best performance – training, coaching, mentoring, counseling, outing, dining, awards, appreciation, compensatory time-offs, feedback, appraisal, etc.
Application Service Management
Managed service management activities for continuous improvement of product quality. Conducted Incident Management and Problem Management for providing best feasible production support services of products. Conducted incident Triage for prioritization of incidents and conducted Root Cause Analysis (RCA) for critical issues in order to deliver continuous improvement of product quality. Practiced Incident Trend Analysis for future scope of improvement of product and implemented through engineering processes.
Release Management
Managed, driven and guided development and quality teams and coordinated with infrastructure for handling multiple releases for various clients. Agile Release Train (ART) methodology was applied for such releases.
People Management
Built and managed multicultural teams comprised of development and quality VPs, managers, architects, leads, software engineers and quality engineers. Hired potential candidates; nurtured through training, coaching, counseling and mentoring; and built world class team that delivered world class quality software. Motivated teams in individual and group levels through awards, bonus and team building activities (outing, dining) and compensatory time-offs. Developed teams by providing regular feedback and performance appraisal. Instilled inspiration and motivation in individual team members by aligning their individual career aspiration and organization objectives. Groomed potential team members for future leadership. Resolved team conflict and established team spirit.
Financial Management
Successfully completed and delivered projects on time within budget. Managed project finances / budgets – human resources (compensation and benefits), infrastructure (hardware and software) and team building (outing, dining, bonus, awards, etc.).
Communication Management
Managed status reporting to CEO. Collaborated with CEO and CXO for implementing management vision through strategic planning and execution. Handled escalations from clients, sales / marketing, customer success, implementation and product management; managed risk / issue; prepared risk mitigation plan and executed them when as per need. Resolved conflict within teams and among peer leadership. Collaborated with various stakeholder functional departments and established processes and various communication channels for collaboration.
Process Management
Established industry standard best practices / processes related to engineering, delivery and program management. For engineering, established architecture / design brainstorming and review, coding standards and code review, and quality processes – test planning, preparation and execution; and finally, DevOps process for continuous development and delivery / release of products through development, QA, staging, UAT and production. For delivery, established client engagement processes; periodic meetings with clients, customer success, product management, implementation and sales/ marketing for managing scope of solution to be delivered. Established processes and communication channels for addressing clients’ escalations; process for collaboration and coordination with all stakeholders; process of regular coordination and collaboration with infrastructure for release and deployment of solutions; process for regular interaction with implementation for driving UAT and product release. For program, established processes of planning, execution, monitor and control, and closure. Established process for organization building; resources hiring, developing and promoting to next level.
Stakeholder Management
Managed and collaborated with various stakeholders for end-to-end management of engineering and delivery of products. For managing scope of work, collaborated with clients, product management, customer success, implementation and sales/ marketing. For delivering products, managed development, QA and support teams and coordinated with infrastructure. Collaborated with clients and implementation for managing UAT, deployment and production support. For addressing clients’ escalations, coordinated and collaborated with clients, customer success, implementation, product management, infrastructure, engineering and support. Collaborated with HR and Finance for hiring, recruitment, team building and managing project finance / budget.
DevOps Management
Managed, guided and driven devops implementation for quality product delivery. Managed Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CICD) implementation in collaboration with Infrastructure for integrating development, quality assurance (QA), staging and production environments altogether.
Vendor Management
Managed vendors for 3rd party software that was integrated with core products in order to deliver solution to clients.