Role Purpose

Barclaycard Payments Limited (BPL) is establishing a disciplined Technology Operations capability to support launch, early scale and future separation of new payments products and platforms in a modern, greenfield fintech environment. The Site Reliability Engineering Lead will be responsible for building the central SRE enablement capability from the ground up within Technology Operations, strengthening reliability, operability and resilience across launch-critical and business-critical services, while avoiding the creation of a separate operational support silo. This role can either be based in Pune, India or London, UK.

The role will define, implement and embed reliability engineering standards, practices and operating rhythms from first principles, including observability, alert quality, service-level objectives, error-budget management, automation, toil reduction and post-incident learning. The role will operate in close partnership with Engineering, Product, ITSM, Incident Command, Controls and supplier teams to ensure that reliability accountability remains with the teams that build and operate the services, while Technology Operations provides the standards, assurance, insight and continuous-improvement mechanisms required to operate safely at scale.

Scope

The role provides SRE enablement across Technology Operations, with an initial emphasis on Q3 launch readiness for priority services, including Next Generation Gateway and Service Portal. The scope includes designing and establishing the foundational SRE capability, reliability standards, service telemetry, SLO / SLI definition, alert hygiene, operational readiness, runbook quality, automation opportunities, incident learning and reliability improvement planning across both internally managed and provider-delivered services.

The role is not accountable for feature delivery, application support ownership or the operation of a traditional production support function. Engineering will remain accountable for service ownership and recovery under the “you build it, you run it” model; the SRE Lead will enable consistent reliability practice, assure readiness and drive systemic service improvement.

Key Responsibilities

SRE Operating Model & Standards

• Design and establish the SRE enablement model for Technology Operations from the ground up, including role boundaries, engagement model, service onboarding criteria and interfaces with Engineering, ITSM, Incident Command and Controls.

• Establish minimum reliability standards for a modern fintech operating model, including observability, alerting, ownership, runbooks, escalation paths, recovery patterns and service health reporting.

• Establish SLO / SLI guidance, including how reliability metrics should be defined, measured, reviewed and incorporated into service decision-making.

• Create scalable, repeatable ways of working that can mature from Day 0 launch readiness into an enduring SRE capability as the organisation, product estate and service volumes grow.

Observability, Alerting & Service Health

• Promote consistent adoption of golden signals, telemetry, dashboards and alert-quality standards across priority services.

• Partner with Engineering and platform teams to reduce alert noise, improve signal quality and ensure actionable alerts are routed to accountable service owners.

• Support the development of a consolidated operational view of service health across internal teams and external providers.

Incident Learning & Reliability Improvement

• Partner with Incident Command and Problem Management to ensure major incident reviews produce clear technical learning, root-cause themes and defined reliability improvement actions.

• Identify recurring failure patterns and translate them into a prioritised reliability backlog, owned jointly with Engineering and service owners.

• Embed evidence-based learning and measurable reduction in repeat incidents, failure demand and avoidable operational toil.

Automation, AIOps & Toil Reduction

• Identify automation opportunities across detection, diagnosis, response, recovery, evidence capture and operational reporting.

• Work with tooling, platform and engineering teams to define AIOps use cases that improve signal correlation, reduce manual triage and accelerate controlled recovery.

• Ensure automation is designed to support control, auditability and operational resilience requirements, without introducing unmanaged operational risk.

Operational Readiness & Launch Support

• Support readiness assessment for launch-critical services, confirming that ownership, telemetry, runbooks, recovery patterns and escalation paths are fit for go-live.

• Provide targeted technical investigation and reliability support during launch, hypercare and early-life service operation.

• Define Day 1+ maturity steps to transition the SRE capability from targeted launch support into a scalable, repeatable reliability model appropriate for a growing fintech organisation.

Key Deliverables

• SRE operating model and engagement approach for Technology Operations, including service onboarding criteria and boundaries with Engineering.

• Greenfield SRE capability roadmap, setting out the foundational Day 0 controls, Day 1+ operating practices and longer-term maturity path for reliability engineering across the fintech platform estate.

• Minimum reliability standards for launch-critical services, covering SLOs / SLIs, observability, alerting, runbooks, ownership and recovery expectations.

• Initial service-health and reliability dashboard requirements, aligned to wider Tech Ops reporting and service review cadence.

• Reliability improvement backlog for priority services, linked to incident themes, problem management and engineering remediation activity.

• Automation and AIOps opportunity assessment, prioritised by operational risk reduction, toil reduction and recoverability benefit.

• Day 0 / Day 1+ SRE maturity plan demonstrating how the capability will transition from targeted launch support to repeatable reliability practice as the organisation scales.

Candidate Profile

• Significant experience in SRE, production engineering, platform engineering or reliability-focused technology operations within complex, high-availability environments, in Payments acquiring, FinTech, E-Pay consistently.

• Strong practical understanding of observability, alerting, telemetry, incident response, SLOs / SLIs, error budgets, runbooks, automation and operational readiness.

• Experience working with distributed systems, cloud or platform services, CI/CD environments and modern operational tooling such as observability, workflow, on-call and ChatOps platforms.

• Proven ability to work with Engineering teams in a “you build it, you run it” model, influencing reliability outcomes while preserving clear service ownership within accountable teams.

• Demonstrable experience operating in a greenfield, scale-up or maturing technology environment, with the ability to build capability, standards, governance and sustainable ways of working from first principles.

• Able to translate technical reliability issues into clear operational risk, service impact and executive-ready recommendations.

• This is a Pune based role, applicants have to reside in Pune already, this position is not eligible for visa sponsorship or relocation support. Applicants must already hold the legal right to work in this location.

• This role is intended for candidates who are already operating at Director level.

Knowledge and Skills

• Advanced knowledge of site reliability engineering principles, including service-level objectives, service-level indicators, error budgets, operational readiness, incident learning, toil reduction and reliability improvement planning.

• Strong understanding of modern cloud, platform, distributed systems and CI/CD operating environments, with the ability to apply reliability practices across complex, highly available technology services in in payments acquiring, FinTech, or E-Pay.

• Practical knowledge of observability, telemetry, logging, tracing, monitoring, alert design, runbook standards, escalation models and service-health reporting.

• Ability to design and establish new operating capabilities in a greenfield or scale-up environment, translating strategic intent into practical standards, governance, routines, tooling requirements and measurable outcomes.

• Strong appreciation of operational resilience, control, auditability, regulatory expectations and supplier accountability within a modern fintech technology environment.

• Skilled in working across Engineering, Product, ITSM, Incident Command, Controls, supplier and senior stakeholder groups to influence reliability outcomes without diluting clear service ownership.

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to convert technical reliability issues into clear operational risk, service impact, investment choices and executive-ready recommendations.

Barclays’ payments acceptance business provides critical infrastructure to the UK economy, processing billions of pounds of payments annually for both small businesses and domestic and international corporate clients.

In April 2025, we announced a long-term partnership with Brookfield Asset Management to grow and transform the payments acceptance business by broadening the range of services offered, enhancing the experience for both existing and prospective clients. Leveraging extensive client relationships and deep experience of UK payments, we will create an environment of continuous innovation - activated by Brookfield’s global private equity expertise in payments, technology, operational transformation and corporate carve-outs - to ensure the business is strategically positioned for long-term growth.

Barclays will invest approximately £400m in the new business, the majority of which will be incurred during the first three years. Performance-linked incentives will drive greater alignment between the partners, underpinning the long-term commitment to the transformation. Barclays and Brookfield will work to create a standalone entity over time, continuing to use the Barclaycard Payments (BPL) brand and acting as the sole payments acceptance services provider to Barclays’ clients for a minimum of ten years.

For more information on our partnership with Brookfield, please visit Barclays.com.

Purpose of the role

To support the implementation of major changes and improvements to the organisations IT service management practices by driving strategic initiatives to modernize, transform and future-proof how the bank delivers and supports technology services.

Accountabilities

• Establishment of KPIs to measure the success and impact of specific transformation programmes, and actively monitor KPIs to identify the ongoing effectiveness of the initiative, improvement areas with the IT service management framework, and mitigate any potential issues.
• Analysis of emerging IT service management tools and platforms to discover if they can support the banks transformation goals and future needs.
• Manage the selection and seamless implementation of new tools and platforms into the IT service management processes, while overseeing the migration of data from legacy systems, to improve system efficiency and reduce manual workload.
• Development and communication of change management strategic initiatives, visions and goals through workshops, sessions, and various communication channels to highlight the benefits and impact of modernising, transforming, and future-proofing the way the bank delivers and supports its technology services.
• Prioritisation of the bank’s initiatives based on their impact on the bank’s goals, resource availability and feasibility, and develop and monitoring a clear execution plan for each transformation project to ensure a successful implementation.

Director Expectations

• To manage a business function, providing significant input to function wide strategic initiatives. Contribute to and influence policy and procedures for the function and plan, manage and consult on multiple complex and critical strategic projects, which may be business wide..
• They manage the direction of a large team or sub-function, leading other people managers and embedding a performance culture aligned to the values of the business. Or for an individual contributor, they lead organisation wide projects and act as deep technical expert and thought leader, identifying new ways of working and collaborating cross functionally. They will train, guide and coach less experienced specialists and provide information affecting long term profits, organisational risks and strategic decisions..
• Provide expert advice to senior functional management and committees to influence decisions made outside of own function, offering significant input to function wide strategic initiatives.
• Manage, coordinate and enable resourcing, budgeting and policy creation for a significant sub-function.
• Escalates breaches of policies / procedure appropriately.
• Foster and guide compliance, ensure regulations are observed that relevant processes in place to facilitate adherence.
• Focus on the external environment, regulators, or advocacy groups to both monitor and influence on behalf of Barclays, when appropriate.
• Demonstrate extensive knowledge of how the function integrates with the business division / Group to achieve the overall business objectives.
• Maintain broad and comprehensive knowledge of industry theories and practices within own discipline alongside up-to-date relevant sector / functional knowledge, and insight into external market developments / initiatives.
• Use interpretative thinking and advanced analytical skills to solve problems and design solutions in often complex/ sensitive situations.
• Exercise management authority to make significant decisions and certain strategic decisions or recommendations within own area.
• Negotiate with and influence stakeholders at a senior level both internally and externally.
• Act as principal contact point for key clients and counterparts in other functions/ businesses divisions.
• Mandated as a spokesperson for the function and business division.

All Senior Leaders are expected to demonstrate a clear set of leadership behaviours to create an environment for colleagues to thrive and deliver to a consistently excellent standard. The four LEAD behaviours are: L – Listen and be authentic, E – Energise and inspire, A – Align across the enterprise, D – Develop others.

All colleagues will be expected to demonstrate the Barclays Values of Respect, Integrity, Service, Excellence and Stewardship – our moral compass, helping us do what we believe is right. They will also be expected to demonstrate the Barclays Mindset – to Empower, Challenge and Drive – the operating manual for how we behave.