Job Description

The R&D Director, Digital Engineering will lead the strategy, transformation, modernization, and delivery of critical Digital Card Issuance Platforms. This role will be responsible for defining and executing the technology roadmap, building organizational capabilities, strengthening engineering excellence, and enabling business growth through scalable, secure, and resilient Card Issuance solutions. The ideal candidate brings a strong combination of product thinking, engineering leadership, platform transformation expertise, stakeholder management, and deep understanding of Digital Payments rails. This is a strategic leadership role requiring the ability to create a future-ready organization, drive transformation, establish a culture of innovation, accountability, and operational excellence.

Qualification:

• B.E, B.Tech, MCA, MCS, M.Tech or equivalent Post Graduation preferably in E&TC, Electronics, Computer Science, or Information Technology.

Experience:

• 15 -18 + years of progressive experience in software engineering, platform development, and technology leadership.

• 8+ years of experience leading engineering organizations and managing engineering leaders.

• Demonstrated success leading large-scale transformation and modernization initiatives.

• Proven experience owning strategic roadmaps and delivering complex enterprise platforms.

• Experience building, scaling, and mentoring globally distributed engineering teams.

Location:

• Pune

What You’ll Do

Strategic Leadership & Transformation

• Define and execute the technology and product roadmap for Digital Card Issuance platforms aligned with business objectives.

• Lead platform modernization and digital transformation initiatives that improve scalability, resiliency, security, and customer experience.

• Establish a multi-year vision for Developer Portal, Transit / Gift Card, and related digital card issunace products.

• Drive innovation by evaluating emerging technologies, payment trends, cloud capabilities, AI-enabled engineering practices, and platform modernization opportunities.

• Establish KPIs and success metrics for engineering effectiveness, platform reliability, customer adoption, and business outcomes.

Product & Delivery Leadership

• Own end-to-end delivery and execution of strategic payment initiatives.

• Collaborate with Product Management, Security, Operations, and Business stakeholders to translate business vision into executable roadmaps.

• Drive prioritization decisions balancing customer needs, technical debt, modernization objectives, and regulatory requirements.

• Provide regular executive-level reporting on roadmap progress, risks, dependencies, investment requirements, and outcomes.

• Champion agile delivery practices and continuous improvement across the organization.

Engineering Excellence

• Build high-performing engineering teams capable of delivering modern digital payment platforms.

• Establish engineering standards, architecture governance, development practices, quality frameworks, and operational excellence metrics.

• Drive adoption of modern engineering practices including DevOps, CI/CD, cloud-native architecture, observability, automation, and AI-assisted engineering.

• Promote a culture of ownership, accountability, innovation, and continuous learning.

• Ensure systems meet enterprise requirements for performance, availability, scalability, reliability, and maintainability.

Team Building & Organization Development

• Recruit, mentor, and develop engineering high-potential talent.

• Build organizational capabilities required for future business and technology needs.

• Create succession plans and leadership development programs to strengthen the engineering organization.

• Foster an inclusive, collaborative, and customer-focused culture.

• Manage organizational growth, workforce planning, budgets, and resource allocation.

Stakeholder & Executive Management

• Serve as the primary technology leader for Digital Card Issuance within the site leadership team.

• Build strong partnerships with global engineering, product, operations, and business leaders.

• Influence decision-making across cross-functional teams and executive stakeholders.

• Effectively communicate technology strategy, business value, and transformation progress to stakeholders

Risk, Compliance & Security

• Ensure compliance with payment industry regulations, internal controls, and security standards.

• Partner with Security, Risk, and Compliance teams to maintain robust governance frameworks.

• Drive secure-by-design development practices across all platforms.

• Ensure operational readiness, business continuity, resilience, and disaster recovery capabilities.

Skills:

Domain Expertise

Strong experience in one or more of the following areas:

• Digital Payments

• Wallet Solutions

• Payment Processing Ecosystems

• API and Developer Platforms

Technical

• Cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, or GCP)

• Modern architecture patterns including Microservices and Event-Driven Architectures

• API Platforms and Developer Experience solutions

• CI/CD, DevOps, Infrastructure Automation, and SRE practices

• Platform engineering and developer productivity initiatives

• Data-driven decision making and observability practices

• AI-assisted engineering and software delivery modernization

Leadership Competencies

• Strategic thinking and execution excellence

• Organizational transformation leadership

• Executive presence and communication skills

• Exceptional stakeholder management capabilities

• Strong business acumen and customer orientation

• Talent development and succession planning

• Ability to influence across global and matrix organizations