Jaison Varkey Email & Phone Number

London, Gb

London Area, United Kingdom

In my current role, I lead the global Finance Engineering team, focusing on Observability, Automation, Operational Standardisation, and Generative AI across all areas of Finance. Finance teams consist of four main areas, supporting over 5,000 users spread across Asia, Europe, and North America. The challenge lies in defining and implementing standards while ensuring reliability and stability for a wide range of internal and vendor applications using different technologies.As an SRE, I specialise in standardising complex processes, performance tuning, and automating wherever possible. I aim to provide visibility across teams and believe in "leading by example". Many of my solutions are validated through proof-of-concepts before being adopted more widely.My key achievements include establishing the five pillars of Finance Engineering, creating a strategic blueprint with goals and roadmaps and leading a global team of 30 internal team leads by providing them with guidance and tools for success in their respective areas. I developed centralised Observability dashboards, which serve as a single point of reference for RAG status, trends, real-time metrics, and usage statistics across Finance. I have also created tracking boards with interactive heatmaps, real-time usage metrics, and team-level measures for governance.

London Area, United Kingdom

Responsible for building production support frameworks, establishing processes and procedures, and implementing automation initiatives across various domains and teams within the Finance space. My role involved leading and managing multiple teams in the Asia/Europe time zones, focusing on streamlining application support and improving overall efficiency.Key responsibilities included mentoring and developing satellite support teams to ensure high-quality service delivery, and acting as a subject matter expert (SME) for Finance applications, providing escalation support and guidance when needed. I successfully implemented automation processes across infrastructure components and application workflows, including alert automations, MQ automation, RFB automation, and disk space management, which greatly reduced manual interventions and improved system stability.Additionally, I developed audit tools to track the use of elevated access, facilitating problem management and significantly enhancing application reliability. My approach emphasised creative problem-solving, effective communication, and aligning individual contributions with team objectives to drive overall success.

London Area, United Kingdom

As an Application Support professional and a gatekeeper of the production environment, I ensured the smooth operation and reliability of finance applications, minimising downtime for end users. My role involved managing day-to-day activities such as incident management, problem management, and change/release management.Our application suite covered a wide range of technologies, including ETL, Autosys for batch scheduling, middleware, web services, and various databases such as Sybase, MSSQL, DB2, Teradata, and Greenplum. We also supported vendor applications on both Linux and Windows platforms.I was actively involved in password maintenance, disaster recovery (DR) strategy, on-call management, and providing global follow-the-sun support to ensure uninterrupted service for the applications.By working hands-on, I had the opportunity to develop support tools, automate routine tasks, and eliminate manual work (TOIL) wherever possible. This helped streamline triaging processes and reduce the time to resolution.

London Area, United Kingdom

Responsible for maintaining and supporting Sybase and Microsoft SQL Server databases on Sun Solaris and Windows platforms, used for asset management applications such as HiPortfolio and HiInvest. Key duties include database installation, capacity planning, migration, patching, performance tuning, troubleshooting, and ensuring security and data integrity. Developed and implemented backup and recovery strategies, and provided 24/7 on-call support for production systems. Supported development teams with query optimisation and technical guidance. Served as a project lead and team member, providing DBA services for business and IT projects.

London Area, United Kingdom

As a member of the Advanced Services Group, worked on below key assignments:J.P. Morgan:- Part of a two-person team providing DBA expertise to upgrade their application capacity from 2,000 to 10,000 users. This involved performance tuning and reverse engineering of an application using 10 databases on Sybase and Unix. Main tasks included analysing query response times, optimising stored procedures and indexes, and using shell scripts for version control.Lazard Brothers:- Provided DBA support for six Sybase ASE and SQL servers on Sun Solaris and Windows NT platforms. Responsible for database backups, recovery, performance tuning, server upgrades, and writing ad-hoc queries for the audit team.Central Council for Education and Training in Social Work (CCETSW):- Recovered live databases after a crash with a week-old backup tape. This involved using Sybase 11 on Solaris, manipulating system tables, and running DBCC commands to ensure consistency.Minster Trust Limited:- Implemented a backup and recovery strategy for Sybase databases on Sun Solaris, automating backups and copying them to a remote NT server. Developed shell scripts for backup automation, FTP transfers, and transaction log management.

India

As a Programmer Analyst and Database Administrator, I was responsible for all Sybase administration tasks to maintain live servers operating 24/7. I also programmed real-time OLTP systems using Sybase front-end tools such as Application Program Tool, Report Workbench, and Data Workbench. Projects I managed included a Raw Material & Packing Material Stores System, Formulation Control System, Resin/Emulsion Production System, Manufacturing Cost Control System, Quality Assurance System, Excise and Accounts System, Warehouse System, Y2K Conversion Project, Backup System, and Version Control System.