Ambarish Bagchi
SAN RAMON,CA
Summary
Results-driven Director of Engineering with 20+ years of experience in Program Management, Release management, program leadership, engineering operation, and site reliability. Proven track record optimizing release cycles and streamlining cross-functional collaboration for fast-paced, high-stakes environments. Skilled in leading cross-functional teams to improve system performance and enhance operational efficiency in complex, large-scale environments.
Overview
21
21
years of professional experience
1
1
Certification
Work History
Director of Software Engineering
Visa Inc.
Foster City, CA
04.2014 - Current
- Led a high-performing team of 15+ engineers and release managers to deliver 1,000+ software releases annually, ensuring the smooth deployment of updates for 20+ critical Tier 1 applications.
- Cultivated a collaborative, growth-oriented team culture that empowered members to take ownership, develop professionally, and achieve success.
- Acted as a hands-on, highly technical engineering manager, providing expertise and contributing effectively to complex technical discussions and decision-making.
- Transformed the feature release process by introducing automation and agile frameworks, reducing release cycle times by 75%, and increasing the deployment frequency of releases without compromising quality.
- Strategically aligned project delivery schedules with business goals, working closely with product management, engineering, and QA teams to prioritize high-impact initiatives. Helped business team to achieve 60% less lead time to release.
- Drove cross-functional collaboration among development, operations, security, and product teams, ensuring timely issue resolution and enhancing the reliability of production deployments.
- Designed automated key performance metrics (KPIs) to senior leadership, providing insights into project progress, bottlenecks, and potential roadblocks.
- Ensured the highest standards of engineering excellence by collecting feedback, promoting best practices, and driving continuous improvement across the team.
- Lead risk management and compliance efforts, ensuring applications meet regulatory standards (SOX, GDPR), and are safeguarded against security threats.
- Drive ongoing process optimization, including the introduction of automated testing, CI/CD pipelines, and monitoring systems to improve code quality and system performance.
Release Manager / Production Support (SRE) Lead
BNY Mellon
Boston, MA - Massachusetts
05.2006 - 04.2014
- Led a team of 15 offshore and five onsite resources in their production support and development effort in both legacy (mainframe) and distributed system (Eagle, Tableau) to ensure quality and timely deliverables consistently.
- Guided cross-functional teams in partnership with senior management to achieve engineering goals.
- Designed and developed scripts to monitor the system, towards minimizing the downtime. This auto monitoring script reduced manual monitoring effort by at least 25%.
- Proposed and implemented a number of system performance tuning in the mainframe system to reduce mainframe CPU usage, resulting in an average yearly cost saving of $600K.
- Conducted numerous trainings to end users and Operation group to explain various application methodologies. Created Knowledge Base repository to store all complicated calculation logics and known issues. This has resulted in a 30-40% reduction in the L2/L3 reported issues, reducing Mean Time to Recovery (MTTR) by 40%.
- Led engineering efforts with a strong business and product focus, consistently prioritizing the delivery of exceptional customer experiences. Achieved multiple customer satisfaction awards.
- Collaborated with external auditors to conduct in-depth compliance audits and Penetration Testing/Ethical Hacking. Ensured all releases met required security criteria, and all previously reported security remediations were remediated within time (RRD).
Application Developer
First Data Corporation
Kolkata, India
02.2004 - 05.2006
- Delivered major enhancements to the Mainframe application, successfully implementing tailored COBOL solutions to meet business needs.
- Leveraged expertise in REXX routines to optimize code delivery, ensuring high efficiency and error-free execution.
- Served as the primary resource for application functionality and technical architecture, possessing deep knowledge of system components.
- Led end-to-end project involvement, including requirements gathering, analysis, design, coding, testing, implementation, and post-implementation support.
- Utilized COBOL, JCL, VSAM, and FILE-AID to maintain and enhance the IMS-based European Application Maintenance Project.
Education
B. Tech - Electronics and Communication
Kalyani University
WB, India06.2003
Skills
- Software Engineering Leadership
- Cross-Functional Team Leadership
- Agile and Scrum Methodologies
- IT Strategy Planning And Execution
- Build and Release Management
- IT Infrastructure Proficiency
- Technical Leadership
- Continuous Integration
Certification
- Agile/Scrum Training
- ITIL Training
Timeline
Director of Software Engineering
Visa Inc.
04.2014 - Current
Release Manager / Production Support (SRE) Lead
BNY Mellon
05.2006 - 04.2014
Application Developer
First Data Corporation
02.2004 - 05.2006
B. Tech - Electronics and Communication
Kalyani University