Sahil Kumar

Sr. Director of Engineering | Ameriprise Financial Services, LLC

Gurugram, Haryana, India

About

Engineering Leader with 16+ years of experience building and scaling large organizations. Currently leading 400+ high-performing professionals across distributed teams in India, delivering world-class digital platforms for client experiences and wealth management, aligned with global business priorities. Direct end-to-end technology strategy, execution, and innovation across client platforms and enterprise systems, with a strong focus on scalability, reliability, and speed to market. Also lead enterprise-wide platforms, including the Digital Experience Platform (DXP), while establishing SDLC standards to ensure consistent, high-quality delivery at scale. Currently driving an AI-first SDLC transformation, leveraging AI-assisted engineering, automation, and modern tooling to accelerate productivity, enhance developer experience, and drive innovation.

Experience

  • Ameriprise Financial Services, LLC ()
    • Senior Director of Engineering
      Aug 2025 - Present · 1 yr

      Driving end-to-end technology strategy, execution and operations across client platforms (web and native mobile), enterprise core engineering platforms, and wealth management systems. Key responsibilities include: • Strategic & Transformation Leadership: Define and execute technology vision, roadmap, and operating model aligned to business goals; driving AI-driven SDLC transformation. • Engineering & Delivery Excellence: Lead 400+ cross-functional teams delivering complex programs with high predictability and quality; drive best practices across scalability, reliability, security, and performance. • Architecture, Platforms & Modernization: Influence architecture direction and standards; lead modernization across platform engineering, automation, DevSecOps, and cloud adoption to build future-ready systems. • Business, Stakeholder & Matrix Leadership: Act as a trusted advisor to business and product leaders; align roadmaps and manage risks effectively in matrixed environments. • Operational, Financial, Security & Risk Management: Own budgets, cost optimization, vendor strategy, and capacity planning; ensure strong security posture, regulatory compliance, and proactive risk management. • People, Culture & Innovation: Build and scale leadership team; drive hiring, development, and performance management while fostering a culture of innovation.

    • Director of Engineering
      Sep 2018 - Jul 2025 · 6 yrs 11 mos

      As Director of Engineering, I owned end-to-end technology strategy, execution and operations across client platforms (web and mobile) and enterprise core engineering platforms. Key responsibilities include: • Engineering Leadership & Team Building: Built and scaled a large cross-functional organization from the ground up in India, established high-performing teams and strong leadership foundations. • Product Delivery & Digital Experience: Led end-to-end product engineering for 10+ digital products, delivering world-class client experiences. • Digital Transformation & Agile Excellence: Drove digital transformation and Agile maturity across the department, reducing regression cycles and accelerating releases through release processes. • Architecture, Platforms & DevSecOps: Spearheaded cloud migration and drove adoption of CI/CD pipelines, and modern engineering practices, improving scalability, resilience, and deployment efficiency. • Platform Ownership & Engineering Practices: Conceptualized, and built the Digital Experience Platform enabling consistent, secure, and faster delivery; institutionalized best practices - git, code reviews, and test automation (Cypress). • Capability Building: Established new capabilities including SRE, UX Research, UX Design and Product Ownership in India; strengthening end-to-end product development. • People and Culture Building: Fostered a strong engineering culture focused on ownership, mentoring talent and driving continuous development.

    • Lead Engineer and UI Architect
      May 2016 - Sep 2018 · 2 yrs 5 mos

      As Lead Engineer and UI Architect, I was responsible for • Architecting, developing, and delivering client applications using latest technology stack while partnering with other stakeholders. • Building and maintaining internal build tools to improve engineers productivity and product health. • Helping junior engineers with code review, adopting best practices etc.

  • UI Architect at Home Depot
    May 2015 - Apr 2016 · 1 yr

    Built a hybrid application to make The Home Depot Pro Account Representatives more efficient with their day to day job. It was built to support both iPad and desktop.

  • Lead Full Stack Engineer at GE Capital Fleet Services
    Mar 2013 - May 2015 · 2 yrs 3 mos

    Worked on GE Fleet Service's vehicle ordering system to revamp and re-build with the latest technologies for better client experience. Executed strategy for SQL to NoSQL database (MongoDB) migration to improve the performance.

  • Technical Lead at IGATE
    Aug 2010 - Feb 2013 · 2 yrs 7 mos

    Worked with GE Money Bank Switzerland to build a comprehensive, consolidated document management system to aid operational simplification & to provide better customer experience. As Tech Lead, I was responsible for - developing User Interface using HTML and ​JavaScript​, jQuery etc. - experimenting with various technologies and Java based libraries to integrate with physical printer and defining the strategy to improve the various printing specifications key for physical delivery and end user experience. - implementing module for Draft Print of word, PDF and tiff documents in single action (Using Aspose, JPedal libraries). - implementing various design patterns. Tools & Technologies: ​JavaScript, HTML, CSS, J2EE, JSF, Spring, ICEfaces.