Job Description
PositionSVP -Chief Architect Head of Engineering
Incumbent
Ramnish BhandariDepartmentDigital TechnologyFunctionDigital TechnologyReporting toCTOBand2LocationGurgaonTeam size (D/I)
6/50
JOB SUMMARY:
A strategic enterprise technology leadership role at Axis Max Life Insurance, responsible for aligning strategy with execution to drive scalable growth, customer-centric innovation, and future-ready transformation. Creates a Long-term vision of Technology Architecture which is in sync with Business strategy, Changing customer expectations and Emerging Technology’s. End-to-end ownership of business platforms across the value chain—including B2B Sales, D2C Ecommerce, Partners, Onboarding, Underwriting, Policy Issuance, Servicing, Claims, and Enterprise Functions. Leads architectural decisions, unifies digital infrastructure, and ensures technology investments deliver agility, resilience, and long-term value.
The incumbent will lead team of 50 team members plus outsourced team of 250+ architects, Engineering Managers, Integration specialist, etc. this role handles a budget of over 80+ crores.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:
Enterprise Technology Vision Strategy
Partner with CXOs and business leaders to align technology investments with customer needs, regulatory requirements, and distribution goals
Develop enterprise-wide strategies, roadmaps, and high-level architecture designs that balance current and future business needs with industry trends, competitive pressures, and organizational realities
Drive innovation and agility via composable, cloud-native architectures powering critical journeys (onboarding, underwriting, issuance, servicing, claims)
Enterprise Architecture Platform Modernization
Establishes enterprise-wide governance through policies and guidelines for technology selection, development, and implementation. Defines current and target state architectures across Business, Application, AI Information, Security, and Infrastructure domains—supported by actionable roadmaps to enable seamless modernization. Promotes reusable patterns and standardized frameworks to reduce complexity, maintain architectural integrity, and optimize costs. Continuously evolves architecture practices to align with changing business needs, delivery models, and innovation goals
Business Architecture – Translates business objectives into operational models that enable new digital products, ecosystem partnerships, and customer-centric growth. Structures value streams, capabilities, and processes to support omnichannel experiences, improve agility, and accelerate time-to-market
Application Architecture – Enables modular, composable platforms using microservices, SOA, and low-code accelerators to support scalable, rapid delivery of customer, agent, and partner-facing applications across sales, onboarding, servicing, and claims
AI Information Architecture – Architects production-grade AI/GenAI solutions including RAG, multi-agent systems, and conversational bots. Designs real-time, multi-modal data platforms and governs enterprise data flow, lineage, and streaming to power use cases like mortality risk scoring, underwriting support, customer 360, and sentiment-driven servicing—ensuring trust, transparency, and compliance
Integration Architecture – Standardize APIs, events and orchestration using event-driven models for policy systems, CRMs, CDP, TPAs, health wellness partners and digital channels
Security Architecture – Implements Zero Trust, IAM frameworks, and data protection by design to safeguard sensitive customer, health, and financial data. Ensure compliance with IRDAI regulations and evolving cyber risk standards across digital platforms
Infrastructure Architecture – Modernizes legacy systems through hybrid cloud and containerized platforms. Supports scalable, resilient, and automated infrastructure for high-availability workloads, including policy servicing, claims processing, and AI inference at scale
Engineering Excellence – Building a World-Class Engineering Organization
Establish and scale a world-class engineering function based on global tech benchmarks, leveraging a modern mix of COTS, custom apps, cloud-native microservices, and data platforms — delivering secure, scalable, and future-ready platforms
Agile Delivery Scalable Execution Models
Institutionalize full-stack engineering and agile-at-scale delivery across all verticals, including estimation, resource planning, cost velocity tracking, and plan vs. actual forecasting.
Operate a skill-based engineering pool optimized for over 100% utilization, ensuring productivity and cross-functional scalability.
Standardize platform delivery on secure cloud-native architectures (microservices, APIs, event-driven patterns) deployed across AWS, Azure, GCP, and OCI. Integrate DevSecOps and test automation to accelerate delivery, improve quality, and reduce cost per story point
Promote reusability, scalability, and compliance through consistent engineering practices and industrialized delivery pipelines
Enable rapid experimentation with emerging technologies and support scaling of viable solutions
Own and optimize technology budgets, ensuring cost-effective investments and resource allocation aligned with strategic priorities. Manage engineering capacity planning and vendor relationships to maximize productivity and ROI
Transform the way the Engineering is executed with emphasis on AI driven engineering with 40% lower engineering effort and faster time to Market.
Engineering Governance, Platform Ops Automation:
Enforce engineering rigor throughout the lifecycle—from design to testing and SIT/UAT—using gated controls for traceability and compliance
Embed CI/CD, GitOps, Infrastructure-as-Code, and observability in pipelines to enable autonomous releases, faster MTTR, and operational visibility
Implement SRE principles and shift-left security to deliver self-healing, audit-ready platforms with built-in resilience and security across hybrid and multi-cloud environments
Talent Development, Leadership Organization Building
Build and lead high-performing architecture and engineering teams across domains, focusing on capability development, succession planning, and talent retention
Establish specialized career paths, leadership coaching, and upskilling programs to deepen expertise in architecture, AI, engineering, and emerging technologies
Foster a culture of innovation, engineering excellence, continuous learning, and accountability—anchored in diversity and an AI-first mindset
Partner with HR to institutionalize digital talent strategies, LD frameworks, and retention initiatives to enhance the employee value proposition
Communication Stakeholder Management
Serve as a bridge between the C-suite, business functions, and technical teams, translating complex technical concepts into business-aligned language
Collaborate with CDO, CTO, Chief Risk Officer, Heads of Distribution, and Compliance to ensure technology aligns with regulatory and risk frameworks (e.g., IRDAI norms)
Represent the architecture vision in steering committees, board meetings, and external partner forums.
Measures of Success:
Architecture Compliance Modernization: Ensure enterprise architecture adherence, accelerate platform rationalization, and increase portfolio sustainability from 70% to 85%
Platform Performance Resilience: Achieve 99.99% uptime for critical applications (up from 99.57%), optimize response times and auto-scaling efficiency, and strengthen security posture through observability, AIOps, and AI-enabled operations management
Engineering Quality DevOps Maturity: Improve Tier 1 2 delivery on-time rate from 75% to 90%, raise testing automation and coverage from 50% to 90%, expand DevSecOps coverage to 100%, and enhance CI/CD adoption and UAT stability
Business Alignment: Maintain high stakeholder satisfaction, ensure alignment with business priorities, and increase delivery confidence by focusing product and platform engineering on agility and resilience
Talent Health Capability: Increase insourcing of specialized talent from 15% to 70%, boost engineering engagement and capability maturity, and strengthen leadership pipeline and retention
Operational Efficiency: Increase self-healing IT operations from 15% to 80%, reduce planned downtime by 50% (from over 200 hours), and implement parallel production-like environments to improve reliability and availability
Bring the costs of Development down by 30%
Key Relationships (Internal /External):
Internal:
COO, CDO, CTO, CFO, Strategy Head, Channel Heads, PI UW Leadership, Legal Compliance, Product engineering team, PMO, Customer service teams
External:
Technology service providers
Vendors
Consultants
Requisite qualification and experience:
Experience: Over 18 years in enterprise architecture and engineering leadership, excelling in large-scale, multi-vertical, and complex projects, including turnaround and stabilization initiatives.
Domain Expertise: Deep knowledge of BFSI sectors, and regulatory frameworks such as IRDAI, data protection, and financial compliance.
Delivery Credentials: Proven track record leading platform, data, and cloud modernization programs valued over $10M at enterprise scale.
Technical Depth: TOGAF-certified architect with expertise in AI/ML, GenAI integration, multi-cloud environments (AWS, GCP, Azure, OCI), mobile, and full-stack development—skilled at aligning business objectives with technical solutions.
Strong Exposure to New Age Data Architecture, Data Governance and Data Products.
Leadership Competencies: Outcome-driven strategist with strong executive presence, project recovery expertise, and strengths in team leadership, innovation, cross-functional collaboration, and regulatory compliance. Effective communicator skilled in client relationship management and escalation handling
Education: B.Tech, MCA, and postgraduate degree (PG/MBA) in Information Systems
