Lead the design & operation of mission-critical distributed data services (Kafka, Redis) at scale across Kubernetes clusters and multi-cloud environments. Manage data & caching infrastructure supporting Petabytes/day ingestion, ensuring low-latency, high-throughput, and cost-effective operation. Build highly automated, self-service infrastructure for cloud portability across AWS, GCP, and on-prem. Drive lifecycle automation for data services using GitOps principles and tools. Define and implement standards for observability, HA, backup, and DR in Kubernetes. Partner with FinOps and engineering stakeholders for continuous optimization of performance, cost, and operational overhead.