Architect - Cloud FinOPS

Job description

Overview

The Architect - Cloud FinOps will partner with the global cloud transformation office to migrate on-premise data center workloads to the public cloud as well as building out new workloads for new projects in the cloud. The candidate will focus on bringing financial accountability to the variable spend model of cloud, drive consumption-based billing, enabling distributed teams to make business trade-offs between speed, cost, and quality.  The role will use cloud financial spend tooling such as Cloud Health or Flexera, as well as Power BI.

Towards that effort, this will be accountable for the following:

Developing reporting on current cloud spend by project, by sector, by IT leader, or by service to provide visibility to the costs and areas of potential improvement.  Subsequently this role will help drive reduction in cost via reporting on suggestions for optimizing our cloud spend (shutting down unused environments, changing to new offerings which may be cheaper, rightsizing servers, assessing if provisioned services match application requirements) and executing those optimizations.  This role will support the successful assessment, planning, and execution of optimization for workloads in cloud environments, i.e., AWS and Azure Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) to begin with.

Assist with analysis of implementation plans for new solutions in the cloud, and ensuring we have a cost-effective support model and hosting model for new services. 

Produce cost reporting and optimization recommendations for (1) support existing PepsiCo cloud solutions, (2) support the multiyear cloud transformation journey which would include operationalizing the required technology foundations in a hybrid multi cloud environment, and (3) support the on-boarding of new cloud-native solutions for PepsiCo.

Responsibilities

·  Key participant in our FinOPS processes for various cloud platforms
·  Develop and execution of ongoing reporting / dashboarding of costs for applications living in our hybrid multi-cloud environments to enable total cost of ownership analysis including cloud hosting costs, software license and maintenance, as well as support labor costs.
·  Partner with Service Providers and key stakeholders to provide visibility to cloud spend as well as monthly optimization activities to reduce cloud spend
·  Accountable for defining requirements for automation for cloud optimization process and procedures in a multi-cloud environment to streamline reporting and allocation of costs to customers
·  Provide solid technological understanding of cloud infrastructures, capabilities and security models (all of which drive the cost)
·  Understand and participate in identifying cloud native services that can be leveraged as the traditional on-premise model shifts to a cloud native service offering (and potentially drives cost savings)
·  Partner with Service Providers to ensure service levels are met through regular operational reviews and ongoing cadence
·  Partner with Architects, Compute and Network Engineers and other stakeholders to provide input into the design, communication and implementation of Strategies, Technology Roadmaps, Standards, Processes and Services and validation of their cost-effectiveness
·  Partner with Information Security and Global Controls organizations as needed to ensure security, audit, SOX and compliance requirements are met across infrastructure services
·  Partner with Asset Management, Capacity and Performance Management for Global IT Servers, Storage and Automation to assist in establishing a forecast model and anticipate demand and costs for that demand across infrastructure services
·  Support financial analysis for Cloud Provisioning and provide input into automation requirements to drive greater Service Delivery maturity
·  Support the Cloud Services team in change governance and change ownership across execution of cost-optimization of cloud services
·  Perform financial forecasting for cloud services and potential savings; provide customer visibility to current costs across various areas (cloud hosting, labor, software), and support management of project and operational budgets if required
·  Stay abreast of new and emerging technologies and processes. Evolve and apply to continuously improve Cloud Services.
·  Provide input into technical and business decisions with respect to cost implications
·  Partner as needed with Risk and Compliance to review Disaster Recovery plans and tests, validate costs associated with Disaster Recovery plans and potential ways to optimize cost while still providing recoverability
·  Determine opportunities for cross-team effectiveness and remove organizational barriers for strong teamwork, collaboration, and excellent Compute service delivery
·  Provide financial consultation to application teams migrating to public cloud based on joint assessment of existing application technology and deployment model to enable early visibility to expected cloud costs
·  Identify the roles, skills and knowledge required including helping to grow and develop the team through hands on training and coaching
·  Generate appropriate communication, process and educational plans for mitigating the disruption of change
·  Experience with various PaaS offerings such as Databricks and AKS and other shared services with costs that may need to be split across multiple consumers
·  Experience with showback and chargeback models based on consumption of services or allocation of cost across consumers based on various methodologies
Qualifications

Years of Experience

·  5+ years of related IT business work experience
·  2+ years of cloud services experience specifically around optimization of cloud cost (IaaS and PaaS)
·  2+ years of experience in FinOPS (Cloud Financial Management)

Mandatory Technical Skills

·  Experience in FinOPS (Cloud Financial Management) and various ways to optimize cloud spend
·  Experience in license management, and measuring utilization and compliance
·  Experience in large hybrid multi-cloud environment – both IaaS and PaaS offerings
·  Experience operating complex multi-datacenter, multi-cluster environment and a strong understanding of multi-tenancy and security
·  Experience with budget management
·  Experience in Azure Automation Runbook using PowerShell
·  Reporting experience using Azure PowerBI
·  Experience with Cloudhealth or Flexera or Kubecost or comparable cloud spend management tools

Mandatory Non-Technical Skills

·  Financial background, or experience in financial management in cloud environment (ongoing optimization of costs, migration costs, licensing compliance, etc.)
·  Strong analytical skills to support problem troubleshooting, resolution, and root cause determination to complex technology issues
·  Ability to thrive in a fast pace and demanding work environment.
·  Strong documentation skills and ability to explain complex technical concepts to non-technical personnel
·  Good collaboration and partnership skills to foster key relationships with other technology, application and business teams
·  Solid foundation in IT operational concepts and procedures
·  Requisite skills to influence others in order gain consensus and alignment for key deliverables that span multiple teams and organizations
·  Vendor management experience
·  Bachelor's degree or higher in computer science, engineering or related field
·  2+ years of relevant experience with Infrastructure delivery and/or operations and/or IT licensing / budget management
·  Understanding of infrastructure and cloud technologies and principles
·  Comfortable being a part of a remote team with members in multiple locations
·  Experience assisting with cost modeling, program cost forecasting, & variance management
·  Excellent communication and strong interpersonal skills

Differentiating Competencies

·  Ability to leverage partnership with Managed Service Providers to achieve business goals
·  Ability to navigate complex IT landscape and still deliver results (working across teams such as Cloud Architecture and Engineering, Finance, Asset Management, Cloud Migration, Cloud Services)
·  Experience in evaluating a business case and providing TCO analysis drawing tangible connections between strategy and financial-success metrics