Awadhesh Kumar Soni (Freelancer)
Professional / Featured
AWADHESH KUMAR SONI
Engineering Manager
20+ Years | Engineering & Delivery Leadership | Cloud & OTT Platforms | Technical Program Management
+91-9560702401 | awadheshmba2011@gmail.com | Noida, India | LinkedIn Profile
Notice Period: Immediate Joiner | Relocation: Anywhere
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Engineering Manager with 20+ years of experience building and running high-performing, cross-functional teams that deliver high-scale OTT, cloud-native, and enterprise platforms. Currently lead a 15-engineer organization across Web, Android, iOS, Smart TV, Backend, QA, and DevOps, owning hiring, mentoring, sprint governance, and technical roadmap decisions. Track record of measurable team and product outcomes — 28% sprint velocity improvement, 30% reduction in critical production incidents, 25% increase in average watch time — driven by strong engineering culture, Agile/OKR discipline, and hands-on technical judgment in Cloud Infrastructure (AWS/GCP/Azure), Microservices, DevOps/CI-CD, and AI/ML. Comfortable operating as the technical counterpart to Product and CXO stakeholders while staying close enough to the architecture to make the right calls. Targeting Engineering Manager and Technical Program Manager roles at product-driven organizations.
CORE COMPETENCIES & TECHNICAL SKILLS
- Engineering Leadership: Team Building (10-20), Hiring, Mentoring, Org Scaling
- Agile / SAFe / Scrum: Sprint Delivery, OKR/KPI, RAID Logs, Backlog Grooming
- Technical Program Management: JIRA, Confluence, MS Project, Dependency Management, Risk RAID
- Solution Architecture: Microservices, Cloud-Native, Event-Driven, API-First
- Cloud Platforms: AWS (EC2, S3, Lambda, RDS, EKS, CloudFront), GCP, Azure
- DevOps & CI/CD: Docker, Kubernetes, Jenkins, GitLab CI, GitHub Actions, ArgoCD
- AI/ML & Generative AI: LLMs, RAG, LangChain, LangGraph, TensorFlow, OpenAI APIs
- Full Stack Development: Python, Node.js, React, Angular, FastAPI, Django
- API Architecture: REST, GraphQL, gRPC, API Gateway, OpenAPI/Swagger
- Data & Streaming: Apache Kafka, Spark, Redis, MongoDB, PostgreSQL, DynamoDB
- Observability: Prometheus, Grafana, ELK Stack, Datadog, New Relic
- OTT / Media Tech: HLS, DASH, DRM, CDN, Tizen, WebOS, Android TV, iOS, STB
- Cost & Budget Management: Cloud Cost Optimization, Estimation, Vendor Management
- Security & Compliance: IAM, SOC2, OWASP, Zero-Trust, Governance Frameworks
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Engineering Manager (Deputy Manager – Product Analytics) | Dish Infra Services – WATCHO OTT (Essel Group)May 2024 – Present
- Built and led a 15-member cross-functional engineering organization spanning Web, Android, iOS, Smart TV, Backend, QA, and DevOps — delivering the WATCHO OTT platform across 5+ simultaneous product streams.
- Worked closely with Product Managers to prioritize roadmap items based on data.
- Partnered with Engineering/Data Engineering to ensure proper event tracking and data pipeline health.
- Supported Marketing/Growth teams with attribution and campaign performance analysis.
- Presented insights to leadership/stakeholders in a clear, business-oriented narrative.
- Improved sprint velocity by 28% by introducing OKR/KPI governance, structured Agile ceremonies, and delivery dashboards; owned the full sprint lifecycle from planning through retrospectives.
- Coached and mentored engineers across disciplines, raising team capability while keeping headcount lean against a multi-million-subscriber platform’s delivery demands.
- Used Codex, Claude, and ChatGPT to streamline architecture work, automate coding tasks, and lift team output without adding headcount.
- Led the GenAI initiative end-to-end: directed a hybrid ML content recommendation engine (collaborative + content-based filtering) built on TensorFlow, Apache Spark, Kafka, and AWS Lambda — resulting in a 25% increase in average watch time and an 18% uplift in CTR.
- Set technical direction for cloud infrastructure across AWS, GCP, and Azure, balancing 99.9% uptime SLA commitments against cost and scalability for the engineering org.
- Acted as the primary technical voice to CXOs, Product Owners, and Business stakeholders, translating quarterly roadmap decisions into team-level execution plans.
- Drove Smart TV delivery (Samsung Tizen, LG WebOS) through the team, cutting player latency 30% and improving app response time 25%.
Technical Lead / Solution Architect | Dish TV India Ltd (Essel Group)Jul 2021 – Apr 2024
- Led 5 engineering squads through Agile adoption — Scrum ceremonies, RAID dependency logs, delivery tracking — improving cross-team release predictability by 40%.
- Set and enforced technical standards, code review processes, and engineering best practices across all delivery squads, cutting critical production incidents by 30%.
- Directed microservices modernization of the OTT/DTH ecosystem, improving platform uptime by 20% and reducing release cycle time by 35% for a 30M+ subscriber base.
- Owned API-first platform architecture unifying content delivery across Web, Mobile, STB, and Smart TV; established OpenAPI standards across the engineering org.
- Coordinated cross-team technical dependencies and synchronized feature releases across Web, Mobile, Infrastructure, and QA teams.
Lead Software Engineer / Delivery Coordinator | E2E Networks LtdApr 2019 – Jun 2021
- Led CI/CD automation design (Jenkins, Docker, Kubernetes) that cut deployment time 40%, supporting enterprise clients’ cloud-native transitions.
- Directed development of API-driven cloud control interfaces, improving developer self-service for E2E’s public cloud platform.
- Drove containerized workload and autoscaling optimization, reducing infrastructure costs 22% for key enterprise accounts.
Technical Architect / Project Owner | Bliss Inns Pvt LtdJun 2018 – Feb 2019
- Led a 6-member team through full delivery lifecycle on a MERN-based hotel booking platform, shipping on schedule and within budget using Agile sprints.
- Set architecture direction for sub-500ms global response times, designing AWS infrastructure (EC2, S3, RDS, Route53, CloudFront) for HA and disaster recovery.
Lead Full Stack Developer | Star Mobileoid2 Pvt LtdJan 2017 – May 2018
- Led delivery of enterprise-grade MEAN/MERN applications with complex business logic and third-party integrations for client-facing platforms.
PHP Lead Developer | Smartube Entertainment Pvt LtdDec 2014 – Nov 2016
- Managed a 5-member development team delivering web services, CMS, and database-driven entertainment applications; set coding standards that cut production bug rate 30%.
Team Lead | Andaaz Fashion / VVS International EntertainmentSep 2011 – Nov 2014
- Led a development team building e-commerce and entertainment platforms; managed sprint delivery, client communication, and technical scope.
Technical Analyst / Web Developer | Malhaar iMarketing / Pixel Webtech Pvt LtdJun 2006 – Aug 2011
- Built web applications and conducted technical analysis across multiple client projects, laying the foundation in full-stack development, debugging, and QA practices.
KEY PROJECTS & IMPACT
FLIQS on WATCHO — AI-Powered Content Recommendation Engine
Stack: Python, TensorFlow, Apache Spark, Kafka, Redis, MongoDB, AWS Lambda
- Led a 10-engineer team designing and deploying a hybrid ML recommendation engine using collaborative and content-based filtering.
- Directed integration of real-time ML inference with OTT microservices via Kafka event streams for personalized content delivery across Web and Mobile.
- Business Impact: +25% average watch time, +18% CTR, significant reduction in platform bounce rate.
WATCHO OTT Platform — Multi-Platform Full Stack Delivery
Stack: Node.js, React, AWS, Firebase, GA4, Microservices, Docker, Kubernetes
- Led the team owning full-stack development, GA4/Firebase event instrumentation, and server-side performance optimization, delivering simultaneous releases across Web, Android, iOS, and Smart TV with feature parity.
Cloud Automation Platform — E2E Networks
Stack: Python, REST APIs, Docker, Kubernetes, Jenkins, CI/CD
- Directed the team building an API-driven cloud orchestration interface, reducing infrastructure provisioning time by 40% through full CI/CD automation for enterprise clients.
EDUCATION
MBA – Information Technology, Sikkim Manipal University — 2013
MCA – Master of Computer Applications, Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Technical University (UPTU) — 2005
CERTIFICATIONS & PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
- AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate (Amazon) – In Progress, target completion [11/2027]
- PMP: Project Management Professional (PMI) – In Progress, target completion [12/2027]
- CSM: Certified Scrum Master (Scrum Alliance) – In Progress, target completion [12/2027]
- GenAI & Agentic AI: LLMs, RAG, Agents, LangChain, LangGraph — Applied hands-on (self-directed)
- GCP Professional Cloud Architect (Google Cloud) – Planned
References and portfolio available on request • Open to hybrid / remote / international opportunities
- Listing ID: 594