Vice President - Technology | Cloud, Security & Large-Scale Systems

Dubai, United Arab Emirates · suryaelite.com

Technology leader with 15+ years of hands-on experience across software engineering, cloud infrastructure, DevOps, security, and data platforms.

I specialize in building and scaling mission-critical systems in fintech, digital advertising, e-commerce, and regulated environments, working with cross-border teams across the UAE, India, and the US.

My work consistently focuses on reliability, security, cost optimization, and operational clarity.

Living in permanent beta mode - learning, improving & evolving.

• Cloud-native, API-first backend platforms designed for scale and resilience
• Secure, compliant infrastructure for finance and enterprise systems
• CI/CD pipelines with rollback safety, observability, and audit readiness
• High-availability Linux-based production environments
• CRM, workflow automation, and enterprise system integrations
• Data ingestion, validation, analytics, and reporting pipelines
• Incident response, monitoring, and operational excellence frameworks

Mortgage & property systems

• Architected an automated Mortgage Proposal Engine (live bank rate feeds, templated client-ready proposals), reducing turnaround from ~60 minutes to ~5, returning 1,200+ hours a year to the team
• Built a unified partner, staff and client portal - iOS and Android from one React Native codebase plus web - serving 42 partner companies (272 users), 50 staff and 1,000+ client accounts
• Rolled out Zoho CRM across 50 users, with the process changes to make it stick

Growth, run in-house

• Google Ads and Meta lead generation, email marketing, and the landing pages the campaigns point at. Web traffic +40%, cost per acquisition -25%

Voice & commerce

• Built the servers and deployed a full VoIP call centre on FreePBX and Asterisk, then wrote the call detail reporting panel on top of it
• Ran Magento e-commerce end to end - catalogues, pricing rules, inventory, invoicing and shipment - integrated with SugarCRM, Unicom and Microsoft Navision

• Vice President - Technology at The Lending Tree, MVP Real Estate & Next Reality (Dubai, UAE)
• Senior Data Engineer / DevOps at Ogilvy & Mather (neo@Ogilvy) - one of the world's best-known advertising networks, part of WPP - working with the agency's New York office
• Former Head of DevOps & Security and Lead DevOps Engineer in Dubai fintech and telecom
• Designed and operated PCI DSS-compliant cloud infrastructures
• Managed 50+ server AWS environments and 40+ containerized microservices
• Strong background in Big Data platforms (Cloudera ecosystem) and observability
• Reported and responsibly disclosed a security vulnerability in a state police recruitment system

• Architected and operated PCI DSS-compliant AWS platforms for regulated workloads
• Led 40+ containerized microservices across production environments
• Built and scaled Big Data platforms using Cloudera (HDFS, Hive, HBase, Impala) behind campaign analytics at Ogilvy, at global agency scale
• Designed monitoring and alerting for large-scale, always-on systems
• Automated deployments, backups, validations, and incident workflows
• Found a vulnerability in a state police recruitment system and disclosed it to the department rather than acting on it. Recognised by the department; covered in print and broadcast media

• DIAT Certified Information Assurance - Defence Institute of Advanced Technology, Pune, with DRDO, Ministry of Defence, India (2021)
• AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner (2020)
• Making Sense of Data - Google (2014)
• Bachelor in Computer Application, First Division - chose Artificial Intelligence as a final-semester paper in 2009, when it was a niche entry on a syllabus
• National Cadet Corps 'A' Certificate (2004)
• Schooled at Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya, selected on a national entrance exam

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