Summary
Overview
Work History
Education
Skills
Websites
Certification
Leadershipprofile
Timeline
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Rajesh Sethu

Sammamish,WA

Summary

Dynamic and results-oriented technology leader with 20+ years of experience building and empowering high-performing engineering teams. Proven track record of driving innovation, operational excellence, and delivering significant cost savings through cloud migration, automation, and platform engineering. Passionate about leveraging technology to enhance customer experiences and business outcomes.

Overview

20
20
years of professional experience
1
1
Certification

Work History

Director of Cloud and Service Engineering

Premera Blue Cross
06.2021 - Current
  • Building SRE Excellence & Migrating to Azure:
    Built the SRE (Site Reliability Engineering) organization from the ground up, implementing proactive monitoring, incident response, and automation practices to improve system availability and reliability.
    Developed the vision and led the successful execution of migrating the company's Kubernetes platform from an expensive third-party solution to Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS). This resulted in a cost savings of over $5 million, reduced incidents and outages, and enabled seamless high availability (HA) while reducing the SRE team size from 10 to 1 through automation.
    This transformation was recognized as a customer success story in Microsoft's quarterly earnings report.
    Led the strategic migration of on-premises Kubernetes infrastructure to the cloud, resulting in improved scalability, flexibility, and cost-efficiency.
    Achieved a cloud adoption goal of ~60%, exceeding the year's target and significantly improving upon the previous adoption rate of low 30s.
    Partnered with Microsoft and [Product Company Name] to successfully pilot and implement the first cloud-hosted instance of the "mothership" platform within the Blue Cross Blue Shield network, demonstrating technical leadership and innovation within the industry.
    Spearheaded the successful migration of the Siebel CRM application to Azure, becoming the first customer to achieve this milestone. This transition significantly enhanced end-user experience and improved application performance by 6x, leading to increased productivity.

    Transforming IT Service Delivery & Achieving Cost Savings:

    Led a team of 60+ full-time employees to establish a comprehensive service engineering organization, resulting in seamless handling of help desk, service desk, campus support, and IT service management functions.
    Led the successful offshoring of the ITOC (IT Operations Center) and service desk functions to Accenture, resulting in a cost savings of $2 million.
    Established a "shift left" vision for ITOC, service desk, and ITSM teams, focusing on proactive problem prevention and self-service, resulting in a significant reduction of P1 incidents and millions of dollars saved in potential penalties.


    Driving Innovation & Automation:

    Implemented an observability platform to proactively detect and diagnose system issues, resulting in a shift from user-reported to system-reported incident detection, enabling faster response times and minimizing service disruptions.
    Led the development and rollout of Live Site 2.0, a data-driven platform that significantly reduced incident severity, with most incidents now classified as P4 (low priority).
    Led a team of software engineers to build self-service automation tools within ServiceNow and Azure to streamline processes, reduce manual intervention, and improve user experience.
    Pioneered the implementation of GitHub Copilot within the company, improving developer productivity and code quality. Shared this success story with other Blue Cross Blue Shield organizations to encourage broader adoption.

    Platform Engineering & DevOps Excellence:

    Led a team that engineered and optimized the ServiceNow platform, leveraging its extensibility and CMDB capabilities to create custom applications and workflows.
    Drove the adoption of HAM and SAM modules within ServiceNow to streamline asset management processes, replacing manual email and spreadsheet-based workflows.
    Led the Enterprise Delivery System Engineering team, responsible for designing, building, and maintaining the Udeploy & Azure DevOps pipeline, incorporating DAST and SAST tools to ensure the quality and security of our code.

Senior Service Engineer

Microsoft
01.2016 - 01.2021
  • Cloud and Infrastructure Lead, responsible for Supply Chain Engineering Divisions Cloud environment. Areas of responsibility includes:
    •SME for Azure Resource Architecture
    •Cultural leader for best practices and optimal resource utilization
    •On-prem to Cloud migrations
    •Budget, Forecasting, Cost Optimization
    •Compliance, Security, Policies

    •Site Reliability Engineer for Hosting Platforms including o AFD
    oAKS
    oAPIM
    oApplication Gateway
    oDatabox Gateway
    oService Fabric

Senior Analyst / Manager

Bank of America Merrill Lynch
01.2008 - 01.2012
  • Led a team responsible for supporting Online, Retirement, and Wealth Management Platforms
  • Managed recruitment, training, attrition, and performance evaluation
  • Contributed to system architecture, product profiling, and ensuring smooth application integration and releases
  • Provided incident troubleshooting, analysis, and resolution beyond 1st and 2nd level support tiers.

Information Security Lead

Visa
01.2006 - 01.2008
  • Technical Lead for end-to-end application, database, and infrastructure support for the Verified by Visa (VbV) application
  • Drove the build-out of a new data center expansion and migrated the VbV application
  • Managed project timelines and estimates for development and QA projects
  • Led the successful migration of Solaris 8 to Solaris 10 & SCSI HSM to nCipher Network HSM
  • Provided direct technical support, security, software engineering, release management, Solaris/Unix/Windows administration, network, and database operations.

Senior Engineer Networking

GE MONEY
01.2005 - 01.2006

Education

Bachelor of Engineering - BE - Computer Science & Engineering

RVS College of Engineering and Technology

Skills

  • Strategic Planning
  • Operations Management
  • Staff Development
  • Team Management
  • Partnerships and Alliances
  • People Management
  • Contract and Vendor Management
  • Budget Management
  • Information Technology Management
  • Team Leadership
  • Multitasking
  • Process Improvements
  • Attention to Detail
  • Effective leader
  • Continuous Improvement
  • KPI Tracking

Certification

  • Exam 533: Implementing Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Solutions
  • Exam 537: Configuring and Operating a Hybrid Cloud with Microsoft Azure Stack
  • MCSA: Cloud Platform - Certified 2018

Leadershipprofile

Skilled at setting a clear technical vision and roadmap aligned with business goals. Experienced in developing and executing comprehensive technology strategies that drive innovation and improve efficiency., Expert in designing scalable, reliable, and secure cloud-based solutions. Proficient in architectural patterns and best practices for cloud-native applications., Passionate about building and mentoring high-performing teams, fostering collaboration, inclusivity, and continuous learning. Proven ability to manage large teams, including managers., Experienced in implementing Agile methodologies and DevOps practices to streamline software development, improve quality, and accelerate time-to-market., Deep understanding of cloud platforms like Azure, AWS, and Google Cloud. Extensive experience in migrating workloads to the cloud and optimizing cloud infrastructure for cost and performance., Strong analytical skills and experience using data to drive decision-making and measure the impact of initiatives.

Timeline

Director of Cloud and Service Engineering

Premera Blue Cross
06.2021 - Current

Senior Service Engineer

Microsoft
01.2016 - 01.2021

Senior Analyst / Manager

Bank of America Merrill Lynch
01.2008 - 01.2012

Information Security Lead

Visa
01.2006 - 01.2008

Senior Engineer Networking

GE MONEY
01.2005 - 01.2006

Bachelor of Engineering - BE - Computer Science & Engineering

RVS College of Engineering and Technology

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Rajesh Sethu