Manager – Engineering Excellence

The Role

The Level 5B Manager will play a pivotal role in orchestrating and aligning Architecture, Quality Assurance (QA), and Operations functions within the Hapag-Lloyd Technology Center. This role ensures cohesive collaboration, technical governance, and operational excellence across delivery teams to support enterprise-scale systems and continuous improvement initiatives.

The ideal candidate brings 7–15 years of experience in IT delivery and governance, with strong exposure to architecture frameworks, quality management practices, and operational reliability. The role requires the ability to bridge technical and managerial perspectives — enabling high performance, consistency, and continuous delivery across diverse technology teams.

Key Responsibilities & Tasks

Architecture Coordination

• Partner with enterprise and solution architects to ensure design consistency, scalability, and alignment with business objectives.
• Facilitate architecture reviews, standards documentation, and approval workflows.
• Maintain visibility on system dependencies and integration patterns across global applications.
• Support technology evaluation and architectural decision-making for major initiatives.

Quality Assurance Leadership

• Define and uphold quality standards, processes, and tools across projects.
• Oversee test strategies, automation maturity, and defect management practices.
• Collaborate with development teams to promote shift-left testing and continuous quality improvement.
• Track and report quality metrics and ensure audit readiness.

Operations Management

• Coordinate operational readiness, deployment, and support processes across environments.
• Ensure incident, change, and release management practices align with ITIL and Hapag-Lloyd standards.
• Work closely with SRE/Operations teams to maintain system uptime, performance, and compliance.
• Drive root cause analysis and implement preventive measures for recurring production issues.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Act as the primary coordination point between Architecture, QA, and Operations leads.
• Facilitate cross-functional planning sessions, retrospectives, and governance reviews.
• Ensure communication flow between teams in Chennai and global technology stakeholders.
• Support Director–IT in strategic alignment and reporting of cross-domain initiatives.

Continuous Improvement & Governance

• Establish governance models for architecture reviews, quality checkpoints, and operational KPIs.
• Promote continuous learning, automation, and best practice adoption across teams.
• Drive efficiency and maturity improvements across delivery pipelines and DevOps practices.

Behaviours & Approach

·       Strong organizational and coordination skills with attention to detail

·       Effective communicator with senior technical and business stakeholders

·       Outcome-oriented mindset with focus on quality, reliability, and scalability

·       Collaborative leader who fosters alignment across technical disciplines

·       Strategic yet hands-on in approach, with a continuous improvement mindset

Work Experience:

· –15 years of IT experience with demonstrated leadership across Architecture, QA, or Operations domains

·       Proven experience in enterprise-scale application environments (preferably within logistics, shipping, or financial systems)

·       Strong understanding of agile delivery, DevOps, and CI/CD practices

·       Prior experience in coordinating multi-domain technical functions in global setups

·       Exposure to governance frameworks (e.g., ITIL, TOGAF) preferred

Technical Skills

·       Architecture frameworks (TOGAF, microservices, event-driven design)

·       Quality Assurance processes, automation, and CI/CD tools (Jenkins, Selenium, JUnit, etc.)

·       Operations monitoring and observability (Grafana, Prometheus, ELK stack)

·       Java, JPA, Kafka, REST APIs, PostgreSQL, and Microservices-based environments

·       Cloud deployment and infrastructure management fundamentals (AWS/Azure)

·       REST API development and Microservices architecture, System design (HLD and LLD), Code quality & code review expertise

FUNCTIONAL / BEHAVIOURAL SKILLS

·       Architecture Thinking and Governance

·       Quality Management & Continuous Improvement

·       Incident and Change Management

·       Stakeholder Communication & Coordination

·       Agile and DevOps Mindset

·       Team Coaching and Mentoring

Education & Qualifications

·       Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field (B.E/B.Tech preferred)

·       Certifications in Architecture (TOGAF), Quality (ISTQB), or IT Operations (ITIL) are a plus