MacHindra Dharmadhikari

About MacHindra Dharmadhikari

With over 14 years in the IT industry, I’ve grown from a Unix Administrator and Production Support Engineer into someone who now leads critical AI platform operations in one of the most regulated industries — banking. My journey has always been driven by curiosity, a love for solving tough problems, and a desire to build engineering cultures that innovate with purpose.Right now, I’m leading the SRE and platform governance for AI systems within the bank — which means I’m not only responsible for the reliability and performance of AI and ML applications but also for reimagining what SRE means in this space. AI systems behave differently. The support structures, monitoring, and definitions of uptime and failure all shift — and I’m at the center of designing that evolution. I work closely on ML pipelines, infrastructure design, compliance integration, and building a resilient support model that keeps both engineers and regulators confident.One of the most rewarding aspects of my current role is building the guardrails around responsible AI use in finance. As we deploy more AI-driven tools and services, I’m actively shaping how we integrate governance, audit, and compliance right into our AI delivery pipelines — not as afterthoughts, but as core features. From designing processes that meet regulatory standards to setting up observability and alerting for ML models, I’m making sure we don’t just move fast — we move safely and ethically.Earlier, I led the central engineering team responsible for SDLC, DevOps, and testing tools across the organization. I’ve been fortunate to design and architect cloud-native CI/CD pipelines using containerized technologies, helping teams shift to scalable, modern engineering practices rooted in Infrastructure as Code and automation.I’ve also played a key role in our Cloud Adoption journey — helping bring in GitHub as a strategic foundation, aligning it with enterprise security, risk, and compliance requirements, and acting as a trusted advisor on design and implementation strategy.Beyond the titles and tools, I genuinely enjoy building systems that people can rely on — especially when they involve new challenges like AI and cloud transformation. I’m currently advancing my skills with the Google Cloud Architect certification and have already completed the Global Enterprise Engineer program to sharpen my enterprise-wide architectural thinking.Outside of work, I’m always exploring - experimenting with shell scripting, writing Python code for fun, or dabbling in Android development and ethical hacking, I stay curious.

Experience

1. Ai Platforms Operations Lead Vice President

   德意志银行

   Mar 2025 — Present · Pune, IN

   As the lead for AI Platforms and Shared Services, I oversee the end-to-end production support, technical operations, and strategic enablement of AI systems across the enterprise.I manage critical AI Shared Services used across the organization, ensuring production stability, incident management, change governance, and continuous operations. My role extends into enabling internal teams through scalable, self-serve AI platforms that allow business and technical users to rapidly experiment, validate, and deploy AI/ML use cases.To ensure enterprise-grade reliability, I’ve embedded observability, monitoring, and DevOps best practices into AI delivery pipelines—building transparent, auditable systems that are quick to recover and easy to scale.A key part of my responsibility is defining and implementing robust governance structures for AI platforms—covering incident, change, risk, compliance, and operational reviews. I work closely with security, compliance, and legal teams to meet regulatory standards and ensure readiness for internal and external audits. This includes building controls for model lifecycle management, explainability, and policy alignment under responsible AI practices.I also lead the integration of AI services into enterprise tools like API gateways, ensuring seamless access, platform consistency, and proper authorization.Currently building and scaling a global team for AI platform support, I’m also driving the strategic evolution of AI into DevSecOps models—bringing automation, policy-as-code, and secure delivery into everyday AI operations.

Education

• Shivaji University

  Bachelor of Engineering (BE)

  2006 — 2010