Cloud Operations Manager Engineering

Cloud Operations Manager - Cheltenham (3 days office based) About Finova

Finova is the UK’s largest financial services technology provider, supporting one in every five mortgages nationwide. Our agile, cloud-native solutions enable over 60 banks, building societies, specialist lenders, equity release providers and a network of 2,400+ brokers to stay ahead in a competitive market.

Built on open architecture and backed by deep industry expertise, our platform is designed to scale. Each year, we process over £50 billion in loans, manage nearly £50 billion in savings, and support the digital servicing of more than 650,000 UK borrower accounts.

Be part of a team that’s driving innovation, enabling growth and shaping the future of UK lending.

Finova offers a flexible, modular technology suite designed to help lenders move faster, scale efficiently and deliver standout digital experiences.

Financial Institutions use Finova to launch products faster, process applications up to 50% more efficiently and reduce operational costs — all while staying fully compliant in a fast-moving market.

As the Cloud Operations Manager, you will be responsible for the day-to-day operational health, stability, and continuous improvement of the cloud-hosted environments for multiple clients within our product suites. You will bridge the gap between high-level cloud strategy and technical execution, ensuring that our production environments are resilient, secure, and performant.

Acting as the primary authority for operational delivery within your remit, you will lead a team of Cloud Operations Engineers. You will maintain high service availability while driving modern practices such as automation, toil reduction, and proactive resilience testing. A core focus of this role is leadership: providing daily mentorship, administrative oversight, and clear career pathways for your team. You will hold responsibility for operational gatekeeping and readiness, directly influencing disaster recovery drills, security remediation, and the seamless transition of new features into stable production services.

• Technical Foundation: Deep experience in managing high-availability production environments (AWS or Azure). You are a technically grounded professional with a passion for operational stability.

• Leadership Aptitude: Proven ability to mentor junior peers, lead technical projects, or act as a 'sounding board' for complex engineering challenges. (This role suits an experienced manager or a Senior Cloud Engineer ready for management).

• Resilience Mindset: A strong drive to replace manual bottlenecks with scalable, code-based solutions and an understanding of SRE principles.

• Event Coordination: Exceptional organizational skills with the confidence to facilitate cross-team events like disaster recovery simulations, pen tests, and post-incident retrospectives.

• Process & Compliance: Familiarity with ITIL and working in ISO-aligned environments. Detail-oriented approach to assessing vulnerabilities and maintaining industry standards.

• Communication
  
  Skills:
  
  Ability to translate technical metrics into clear availability and performance updates for engineering teams, senior leadership, external clients, and third-party partners.

• Collaborative Approach: Eager to partner with the Head of Cloud Ops, Platform teams, and Finance to build a high-performing, cost-effective engineering culture.

• Operational Excellence & Service Management: Manage day-to-day capacity, priorities, and workloads to consistently meet availability and performance SLAs. Embed ITIL-aligned service management practices (incident, problem, and change processes) to drive continuous improvement.

• Team Leadership & Development: Own the capability and growth of your team through formal line management, coaching, and career development. Maintain a high-quality technical wiki and skills matrix to eliminate silos.

• Automation & Toil Reduction: Eliminate operational waste by identifying repetitive manual tasks and directing Senior Engineers to prioritize automation and self-healing infrastructure.

• Operational Gatekeeping: Conduct readiness checks…