Menu
Platform · Release · Cloud migration · Reliability
Vighnesh Naik
Platform, Release, DevOps & SRE Leader
Engineering reliable cloud platforms—and the teams behind them.
16+ years across engineering leadership, platform engineering, release engineering, cloud migrations, cost optimization, incident management, DevOps, SRE, operations, and higher education—including 9+ years progressing through technical and leadership roles at WTW.
01 · About
Reliability is a technical outcome—and a leadership practice.
Building calm, capable teams for complex systems.
Vighnesh Naik · Engineering LeaderI bring platform, release, engineering, operations, security, and product teams together to build cloud platforms that are resilient by design, easy to release, and simpler to operate at scale.
My work sits at the intersection of architecture and execution: leading cloud migrations, simplifying platforms, optimizing cloud spend, creating dependable release systems, and strengthening incident readiness and response.
Clarity over complexityAutomation with accountabilityLearning over blame
02 · Experience
16+ years of building, operating, teaching, and leading.
Experienced engineering leader specializing in people leadership, SRE, platform and release engineering, Azure cloud transformation, cost optimization, incident management, CI/CD, and infrastructure automation. Proven track record of building high-performing teams and delivering secure, scalable, and resilient enterprise platforms.
Associate Director | Engineering Manager (SRE, DevOps & Release)
Jun 2022 - Jan 2026 · 3 yrs 8 mos
Austin, Texas- Led and mentored a geographically distributed team of SRE, DevOps, and Release Engineers, owning performance, coaching, onboarding, and development.
- Drove strategic roadmaps and technical training programs to improve engineering productivity, operational maturity, and release efficiency.
- Served as incident commander for live-site escalations, led postmortems, and implemented preventive measures to reduce recurring incidents.
- Established monitoring, observability, security, and compliance governance in partnership with engineering leaders and business stakeholders.
Senior DevOps Engineer
Apr 2020 - May 2022 · 2 yrs 2 mos
Austin, Texas- Spearheaded scalable Azure infrastructure across multiple regions, improving availability, performance, and cost efficiency.
- Directed critical migrations from on-premises infrastructure to Azure while coordinating cross-functional teams and preserving service continuity.
- Architected Azure DevOps CI/CD strategies for monolithic and microservices architectures and mentored engineers in Infrastructure as Code.
- Automated Platform and DevOps reporting with Wiz, Azure Logic Apps, and Log Analytics, reducing manual effort by more than 50%.
Lead DevOps Engineer
Aug 2016 - Mar 2020 · 3 yrs 8 mos
Buffalo, New York- Designed and maintained Azure cloud infrastructure and automated IaaS and PaaS delivery through Infrastructure as Code.
- Planned and migrated five application environments from on-premises infrastructure to multiple Azure regions.
- Built multistage Azure DevOps pipelines and implemented blue-green, canary, and feature-flag deployment strategies.
- Administered Git and TFVC migrations, branching policies, access controls, outage analysis, and cloud cost-management automation.
System Engineer | DevOps, Cloud Operations
Jun 2015 - Jul 2016 · 1 yr 2 mos
San Francisco Bay Area- Enhanced monitoring with Nagios, Cacti, Observium, and Grafana and managed PagerDuty escalations for production incidents.
- Automated server builds, releases, and cloud migrations with Puppet and SaltStack.
- Designed and managed Proxmox and KVM virtual machines while supporting data-center inventory with Device42 and Racktables.
- Administered Gentoo, Ubuntu, and CentOS systems and maintained configuration and monitoring code in Git and Apache SVN.
DevOps | Cloud Infrastructure Engineering Intern
Jun 2014 - May 2015 · 1 yr
San Francisco Bay Area- Supported the build and scale of secure cloud infrastructure with a focus on reliability and performance.
- Automated server builds, release processes, and cloud-migration workflows using Puppet and SaltStack.
- Worked with Cassandra, MySQL, and open-source database technologies and improved knowledge sharing through Confluence documentation.
Graduate Student Assistant
Aug 2013 - May 2014 · 10 mos · Part-time
San Francisco Bay Area- Developed and edited faculty video tutorials using Camtasia.
- Guided incoming students and supported the Dean's office through help-desk and administrative responsibilities.
Associate Professor
Sep 2009 - Jun 2013 · 3 yrs 10 mos
Goa, India- Conducted lectures, supported research and classroom activities, and collaborated with senior faculty members.
- Troubleshot departmental networks, including addressing, gateway, and switching issues.
- Designed and hosted a tutorial website for the Mechanical Engineering Department.
- Volunteered in a statewide information-security awareness program.
Credentials
Expertise that keeps evolving.
Education
Master of Science in Artificial IntelligenceIndiana Wesleyan University · February 2026 - Present
Master of Science in Software EngineeringSpecialization in Cloud Computing · San Jose State University · 2013-2015
Bachelor of Engineering in Information TechnologyGoa University · Goa, India · 2004-2008
Certifications
Azure Solutions Architect ExpertMicrosoft Certified · ExpertVerify credential
Azure DevOps Engineer ExpertMicrosoft Certified · ExpertVerify credential
Azure Security Engineer AssociateMicrosoft Certified · AssociateVerify credential
Azure Administrator AssociateMicrosoft Certified · AssociateVerify credential
Azure AI FundamentalsMicrosoft Certified · FundamentalsVerify credential
Wiz cloud security certificationWiz
03 · Expertise
From platform foundations to operational excellence.
Platform & release engineering
Cloud platform architecture and dependable release systems spanning self-service infrastructure, CI/CD, deployment strategies, and governance.
AzureAzure DevOpsAKSTerraformRelease engineering
Reliability & incident management
SLO-driven operations, incident command, observability, capacity planning, disaster recovery, postmortems, and blameless learning.
SREIncident managementAzure MonitorPagerDutyDR
DevSecOps & governance
Security guardrails integrated into delivery through identity governance, vulnerability management, policy, and measurable risk reduction.
WizPIMRBACACR scanningCompliance
Cloud migration & optimization
Enterprise cloud migrations, modernization roadmaps, cost governance, capacity optimization, and cross-functional execution with minimal disruption.
Cloud migrationsFinOpsCost optimizationModernizationLeadership
04 · Tools & technologies
A hands-on toolkit for building and operating dependable platforms.
Technologies I have applied across cloud platforms, delivery pipelines, reliability, security, automation, and data systems.
36 production experience14 working knowledge
01
Cloud platforms
Public cloud and hybrid infrastructure delivery across enterprise environments.
- Microsoft AzureProduction experience
- Amazon Web Services (AWS)Working knowledge
- Google Cloud Platform (GCP)Working knowledge
- On-premises, co-location & data centersProduction experience
02
Infrastructure as Code
Repeatable, governed infrastructure provisioning and configuration automation.
- TerraformProduction experience
- BicepProduction experience
- ARM TemplatesProduction experience
- SaltStackWorking knowledge
- PuppetWorking knowledge
- AnsibleWorking knowledge
03
CI/CD & source control
Delivery automation, release orchestration, artifact management, and version control.
- Azure DevOpsProduction experience
- GitHub EnterpriseWorking knowledge
- JenkinsWorking knowledge
- Octopus DeployProduction experience
- Subversion (SVN)Production experience
- ChocolateyProduction experience
04
Containers & orchestration
Containerized workloads, managed Kubernetes, and secure image registries.
- DockerProduction experience
- Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)Production experience
- Azure Container Registry (ACR)Production experience
05
Monitoring & observability
Telemetry, alerting, application performance, and infrastructure health at scale.
- Azure MonitorProduction experience
- Application InsightsProduction experience
- Log AnalyticsProduction experience
- New RelicProduction experience
- UptrendsProduction experience
- GrafanaProduction experience
- PRTGProduction experience
- NagiosProduction experience
06
Scripting & automation
Operational automation, platform tooling, and repeatable engineering workflows.
- PowerShellProduction experience
- BashProduction experience
- PythonWorking knowledge
07
Security & governance
Cloud protection, policy guardrails, vulnerability management, and secure networking.
- Microsoft Defender for Cloud (Azure Defender)Production experience
- Azure PolicyProduction experience
- Power BIProduction experience
- Microsoft Sentinel (Azure Sentinel)Production experience
- Azure FirewallProduction experience
- SnykWorking knowledge
- WhiteSource BoltProduction experience
- Burp SuiteWorking knowledge
- NSG Flow LogsProduction experience
- Black DuckWorking knowledge
- WiresharkWorking knowledge
- Azure Application GatewayProduction experience
- Azure Front DoorProduction experience
08
Databases
Relational, distributed, document, cache, and cloud-native data platforms.
- Microsoft SQL ServerProduction experience
- Azure SQL DatabaseProduction experience
- Azure SQL Managed InstanceProduction experience
- RavenDBProduction experience
- RedisProduction experience
- Apache CassandraWorking knowledge
- Azure Cosmos DBWorking knowledge
05 · Selected work
Transformation measured in outcomes.
PLATFORM01
Enterprise Azure transformation
Led a multi-stage journey from data center infrastructure to Azure IaaS and PaaS across five environments and 10+ enterprise applications.
Modernized delivery · increased resilienceRELIABILITY02
Observability modernization
Built a unified reliability practice around Azure Monitor, Log Analytics, Application Insights, actionable alerting, and on-call operations.
99.99% uptime · 100+ servicesSECURITY03
Automated cloud-risk reporting
Connected Wiz findings with Azure automation and operational reporting to give teams clearer ownership and leadership better visibility.
Faster remediation · stronger governanceAI + OPERATIONS04
Responsible GenAI for DevOps/SRE
Exploring controlled AI-assisted incident analysis, alert triage, runbook generation, and capacity planning with human accountability built in.
Current master’s research focus06 · Recommendations
Trusted by engineers and technology leaders.
Perspectives from colleagues and leaders who have worked alongside me across DevOps, cloud infrastructure, engineering delivery, and operational support.
inMay 2020
“Vighnesh is a dedicated professional, who brings all of the skills and expertise in DevOps. I had the pleasure of working with Vighnesh at Willis Towers Watson, collaborating on a few projects and working towards improving our DevOps maturity. Vighnesh demonstrated expert skills, work ethic, and leadership to make each project a success. No matter how urgent or difficult the situation, he always kept a positive attitude. He would be a great asset to any company needing an intelligent, thoughtful, professional Engineer.”
inJune 2020
“It was my pleasure to have had Vighnesh on my team during our tenure at Willis Towers Watson. His undying dedication to customer focus as well as continuous learning were both great assets to the team. He demonstrated skills soon after joining the team, and continued to build on those skills, becoming a very knowledgeable and capable DevOps engineer. That, coupled with his positive demeanor and ability to keep cool under pressure, made him invaluable.”
inOctober 2021
“Vighnesh is a core contributor of one of the greatest teams I have worked with. He is intelligent, highly skilled in all aspects of DevOps and well experienced in Azure. His enthusiasm and supportive mindset is a great asset to an organization.”
inJune 2020
“There are few that I know that have Vighnesh’s superb work ethic. He is the epitome of ‘if you want something done, give it to someone who is busy’. His quiet, kind demeanor make him the perfect person for a very demanding support role, such as in DevOps support. Vighnesh is a great guy to have on your team.”
View three more recommendations
inMay 2020
“Vighnesh and I went to the same university and had the pleasure of taking classes with him where I found what an exceptional learner he was. We worked together on our final year project, where I could see his ability to focus, think about creative solutions, and aim for high-quality work. A great colleague to have with accommodating, kind and positive attitude.”
inMay 2020
“I've gotten to know Vighnesh both personally and professionally and he has a big heart in both areas of his life. He's a very patient person, taking time to help in any situation while maintaining a sense of urgency. He very knowledgable in the area of devops and has supported my team while I was working at Barracuda Networks. He doesn't hesitate to help out and would be a great contribution to any team.”
inMay 2020
“I hired Vignesh at Barracuda and he has good work ethic and helped to build barracuda infrastructure in lab, datacenter. He was willing to take all necessary tasks for devops team and support the QA, engineering and operations team and providing support in a timely manner. He would be a good addition to any devops team.”
Recommendations received through LinkedIn.
View on LinkedIn07 · Contact
Let’s build systems—and teams—that stay ready.
Open to conversations about platform and release engineering, cloud migrations, cloud cost optimization, incident management, DevOps, SRE, Azure transformation, cloud security, and engineering leadership.
Connect on LinkedIn Round Rock / Austin, Texas