Sr. Manager, Site Reliability Engineering - Chennai, India

PayPal is seeking a highly experienced and motivated Sr. Manager for Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) to join our team in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. This role involves leading a team of SREs, driving operational excellence, and ensuring the high availability, resilience, and performance of critical systems.

Key Responsibilities

• Manage and mentor a team of site reliability engineers, setting performance objectives, providing technical guidance, and ensuring alignment with business goals.
• Oversee the execution of reliability initiatives, ensuring critical systems maintain high availability, resilience, and performance at scale.
• Collaborate with engineering, operations, and product teams to integrate reliability best practices into development, deployment, and operational processes.
• Lead incident management activities, including response coordination, root cause analysis, and implementing preventative solutions.
• Define and track key performance indicators (KPIs) for system reliability, availability, and performance, reporting to leadership.
• Drive automation within the SRE team to streamline processes and minimize manual intervention.
• Manage capacity planning to ensure system scalability and effective handling of increasing traffic and resource demands.
• Ensure the development and testing of disaster recovery plans and procedures to minimize downtime.
• Lead career development and mentorship for team members, fostering skill growth and career advancement.
• Align SRE goals with broader organizational objectives to support business continuity and growth.
• Provide guidance on escalated technical issues and complex infrastructure challenges.
• Oversee 24/7 monitoring and management of multi/hybrid cloud and on-premises infrastructure.
• Develop and implement incident management procedures, response protocols, and escalation frameworks.
• Collaborate with DevOps, Security, and Application Development teams to resolve incidents and implement preventive measures.
• Manage vendor relationships and coordinate with external partners for infrastructure services.
• Drive continuous improvement initiatives for system reliability, disaster recovery, performance, and operational efficiency.
• Provide technical leadership during major incidents, coordinating response and post-incident analysis.
• Develop team capabilities through mentoring, training, and knowledge sharing.
• Prepare and present operational metrics, incident reports, and recommendations to senior leadership.

Qualifications and Experience

• Minimum of 12 years of relevant work experience and a Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience.
• Previous management experience is required.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or a related field; Master's degree is preferred.
• Extensive experience (12+ years) in infrastructure management, with at least 3 years in a leadership role.
• Deep experience with multiple cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP) and on-premises infrastructure management.
• Strong background in incident management, ITIL frameworks, and operational best practices.
• Proficiency with monitoring tools, automation platforms, and infrastructure-as-code technologies.
• Proven track record of leading technical teams in high-pressure, mission-critical environments.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to interact effectively with technical teams and executive leadership.
• Experience with enterprise applications, databases, and network infrastructure.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with keen attention to detail.
• Knowledge of financial cyber security protocols (ISO 27001, SOC2) and incident detection and response frameworks.
• Deep knowledge of financial regulatory requirements is preferred.
• Background in DevOps practices and CI/CD pipeline management.
• Experience with containerization technologies and orchestration platforms.
• Relevant certifications such as ITIL, cloud provider certifications, or PMP are advantageous.