AWS Cloud Associate Manager, Solution Engineering

AWS Cloud Associate Manager – Pune, India 

The AWS Cloud Associate Manager is a technical lead role responsible for technically guiding a team of cloud engineers while remaining deeply hands-on with AWS infrastructure, operations, and reliability engineering. This role sits at the intersection of cloud operations, platform engineering, and incident management, ensuring highly available, secure, and performant AWS environments supporting business-critical applications. 

Western Union powers your pursuit 
The ideal candidate combines strong AWS technical expertise, operational discipline, and people leadership, with the ability to lead through incidents, drive automation, and continuously improve cloud resilience and efficiency. 

Key Responsibilities
 

Technical Leadership & Engineering

• Act as a hands-on technical leader, actively designing, reviewing, and troubleshooting AWS architectures and operational workflows
• Lead and contribute to the management of production AWS environments supporting Tier-1 / Tier-0 workloads
• Drive cloud reliability, resiliency, and availability improvements, including multi-AZ and multi-region designs
• Review and guide implementation of infrastructure as code (IaC) using tools such as CloudFormation and/or Terraform
• Lead initiatives around automation, self-healing, and operational tooling using Lambda, Step Functions, EventBridge, and scripting (Python/Bash)
• Ensure strong security and compliance posture, including IAM, network segmentation, encryption, and logging

Cloud Operations & Incident Management

• Serve as an escalation point during P1 / P2 incidents, providing technical direction and hands-on remediation
• Lead root cause analysis (RCA) and post-incident reviews, driving corrective and preventive actions
• Partner with application, security, and platform teams to resolve complex, cross-service issues
• Ensure operational readiness through runbooks, SOPs, and DR procedures
• Participate in and lead disaster recovery exercises, failover/failback testing, and resilience drills

Team Management & Mentorship

• Manage and mentor a team of AWS cloud engineers, providing technical guidance, coaching, and performance feedback
• Foster a culture of operational excellence, ownership, and continuous learning
• Assist with onboarding, skills development, and technical upskilling of team members
• Support staffing, capacity planning, and on-call rotations to ensure 24×7 operational coverage

Platform & Service Ownership

• Own AWS platform components such as:
  • EC2, Auto Scaling, ALB/NLB
  • VPC, Transit Gateway, PrivateLink, Route 53
  • ECS/EKS (where applicable)
  • RDS/Aurora, DynamoDB, ElastiCache
  • S3, EFS, Backup, and FSX
• Drive cost optimization initiatives using AWS Cost Explorer, Savings Plans, and right-sizing strategies
• Partner with FinOps, Security, and Architecture teams to align cloud platforms with enterprise standards

Observability & Performance

• Ensure strong monitoring, alerting, and observability using CloudWatch, third-party APM tools, and custom dashboards
• Lead performance and capacity planning discussions, identifying bottlenecks and scaling risks Define and track SLOs, SLIs, and operational KPIs 

Role Requirements
 

Technical Skills

• 3+ years of hands-on experience with AWS cloud infrastructure
• Strong expertise in core AWS services: EC2, VPC, IAM, ELB, Auto Scaling, S3, RDS
• Experience with Linux-based systems (Amazon Linux, RHEL, Ubuntu)
• Strong understanding of networking concepts (subnets, routing, DNS, load balancing, firewalls)
• Experience with automation and scripting (Python, Bash, or similar)
• Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines and DevOps practices
• Experience operating high-availability, production systems

Leadership & Operational Skills

• 2+ years of experience leading or mentoring technical teams
• Proven experience handling major production incidents and complex troubleshooting
• Strong documentation and communication skills
• Ability to balance people management with hands-on technical contribution

Preferred Qualifications

• AWS certifications (Solutions Architect, SysOps, or DevOps Engineer)
• Experience with ECS, EKS, or Kubernetes
• Experience with Terraform or large-scale CloudFormation deployments
• Familiarity with security tooling, vulnerability management, and audit requirements
• Experience with disaster recovery automation and multi-region architectures
• Exposure to FinOps practices and cloud cost governance

Key Success Indicators

• Reduced incident frequency and MTTR
• Improved automation and operational maturity
• Increased platform resiliency and DR readiness
• High team engagement, skill growth, and retention
• Strong alignment with security, compliance, and architecture standards

30 / 60 / 90 Day Expectations

First 30 Days – Learn, Stabilize, and Integrate

Focus: Environment understanding, team integration, and operational readiness

Technical & Platform

• Gain deep familiarity with the organization’s AWS landscape, including:
  • Account structure, landing zones, and network topology
  • Core Tier-1 / Tier-0 platforms and dependencies
  • Existing IaC, automation, and operational tooling
• Review current architecture standards, security baselines, and operational runbooks
• Access and understand monitoring, alerting, and observability dashboards
• Participate in on-call rotations and incident bridges to understand operational patterns

Operational & Process

• Review recent P1/P2 incidents, RCAs, and corrective actions
• Understand DR strategies, RTO/RPO targets, and current failover procedures
• Become familiar with change management, release processes, and escalation paths

People & Leadership

• Establish strong working relationships with team members and key stakeholders
• Understand individual team strengths, skill gaps, and ownership areas
• Set expectations around operational discipline, documentation, and incident response

Success Indicators

• Able to independently navigate AWS environments and tooling
• Trusted participant in incident response and technical discussions
• Clear understanding of platform risks and improvement opportunities

60 Days – Execute, Improve, and Lead

Focus: Hands-on contribution, operational improvements, and team leadership

Technical & Platform

• Take ownership of one or more critical AWS platform components or services
• Actively lead troubleshooting and remediation for production issues
• Identify and implement quick-win improvements in:
  • Monitoring and alerting quality
  • Automation and manual toil reduction
  • Security gaps or configuration inconsistencies
• Review and improve existing IaC and deployment pipelines

Operational & Resiliency

• Lead at least one RCA from problem statement through corrective actions
• Contribute to DR readiness by reviewing and testing failover/failback procedures
• Improve operational documentation, runbooks, and SOPs

People & Leadership

• Begin coaching engineers on technical depth, AWS best practices, and incident handling
• Support performance feedback and skill development plans
• Improve on-call efficiency and escalation clarity

Success Indicators

• Demonstrated ownership of production services
• Measurable improvements in operational hygiene or automation
• Increased team confidence in technical leadership

90 Days – Own, Optimize, and Scale

Focus: Platform ownership, strategic improvements, and sustained leadership impact

Technical & Platform

• Serve as a go-to technical authority for AWS operations and reliability
• Lead design and implementation of larger resiliency, automation, or scalability initiatives
• Drive improvements in:
  • Multi-AZ / multi-region resilience
  • Capacity planning and performance posture
  • Cost optimization and governance
• Ensure AWS environments align with security, compliance, and architecture standards

Operational Excellence

• Lead or co-lead DR exercises, resilience drills, or failure simulations
• Reduce incident recurrence through systemic fixes and automation
• Define and track operational KPIs, SLIs, and SLOs

People & Leadership

• Demonstrate strong people management through:
  • Clear accountability and ownership
  • Consistent coaching and feedback
  • Career development and skill growth within the team
• Actively contribute to hiring, onboarding, and succession planning

Success Indicators

• Improved platform stability, MTTR, and operational confidence
• Strong team engagement and technical maturity
• Recognized ownership of AWS cloud operations and reliability outcomes

We make financial services accessible to humans everywhere. Join us for what’s next.
Western Union is positioned to become the world’s most accessible financial services company —transforming lives and communities. We’re a diverse and passionate customer-centric team of over 8,000 employees serving 200 countries and territories, reaching customers and receivers around the globe. More than moving money, we design easy-to-use products and services for our digital and physical financial ecosystem that help our customers move forward.
Just as we help our global customers prosper, we support our employees in achieving their professional aspirations. You’ll have plenty of opportunities to learn new skills and build a career, as well as receive a great compensation package. If you’re ready to help drive the future of financial services, it’s time for Western Union. Learn more about our purpose and people at https://careers.westernunion.com/.

Benefits
You will also have access to short-term incentives, multiple health insurance options, accident and life insurance, and access to best-in-class development platforms, to name a few
(https://careers.westernunion.com/global-benefits/). Please see the location-specific benefits below and note that your Recruiter may share additional role-specific benefits during your interview process or in an offer of employment.

Your India specific benefits include:
•    Employees Provident Fund [EPF]•    Gratuity Payment
•    Public holidays
•    Annual Leave, Sick leave, Compensatory leave, and Maternity / Paternity leave
•    Annual Health Check up
•    Hospitalization Insurance Coverage (Mediclaim)
•    Group Life Insurance, Group Personal Accident Insurance Coverage, Business Travel Insurance
•    Cab Facility
•    Relocation Benefit

Western Union values in-person collaboration, learning, and ideation whenever possible. We believe this creates value through common ways of working and supports the execution of enterprise objectives which will ultimately help us achieve our strategic goals. By connecting face-to-face, we are better able to learn from our peers, problem-solve together, and innovate.  

Our Hybrid Work Model categorizes each role into one of three categories. Western Union has determined the category of this role to be Hybrid. This is defined as a flexible working arrangement that enables employees to divide their time between working from home and working from an office location. The expectation is to work from the office a minimum of three days a week.

We are passionate about diversity. Our commitment is to provide an inclusive culture that celebrates the unique backgrounds and perspectives of our global teams while reflecting the communities we serve. We do not discriminate based on race, color, national origin, religion, political affiliation, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, gender identity, age, disability, marital status, or veteran status. The company will provide accommodation to applicants, including those with disabilities, during the recruitment process, following applicable laws.

#LI-HR1 #LI-Hybrid

Estimated Job Posting End Date:

02-03-2026

This application window is a good-faith estimate of the time that this posting will remain open. This posting will be promptly updated if the deadline is extended or the role is filled.