Sushma Aakula
Hyderabad
Summary
Skilled technical lead successful at marrying technology and business needs in order to meet changing demands and solve diverse problems. Prepared to leverage several years of experience to take on new role with long-term potential and room for professional growth.
Overview
6
6
years of professional experience
3
3
years of post-secondary education
Work History
Infrastructure Service Manager
Cognizant Technologies
Hyderabad
09.2020 - Current
- Created and managed incidents in JIRA for server and application outages, tracking each case through to closure within 24-hour SLA targets.
- Initiated and led bridge calls when issues persisted, collaborating with technical teams to identify root cause and restore services.
Incident Manager
Gilead Sciences
Hyderabad
09.2020 - Current
- Plan and maintain release calendars, windows, and cycles across applications/environments in alignment with business priorities and ITIL processes.
- Coordinate release activities across cross-functional teams (Dev, QA, Infra/Cloud, Security, Business) and ensure release readiness.
- Manage risks, dependencies, and issues that can affect release scope, schedule, or quality and drive mitigation or rollback when needed.
- Ensure all changes in a release comply with change management policies, approvals, and documentation standards.
- Oversee quality gates, including completion of testing, performance checks, and sign‑offs before production deployment.
- Drive and coordinate deployment execution, including go/no‑go decisions, deployment checklists, and real‑time communication during cutover.
- Define and maintain rollback and contingency plans; lead incident response if deployment issues occur.
- Prepare and publish release notes, deployment plans, and post‑release reports for stakeholders.
- Monitor release metrics (success rate, failures, defects, lead time) and lead continuous improvement of release processes and tooling.
Technical Lead
Cognizant
Hyderbad
09.2020 - Current
- Lead end-to-end Incident Management for multiple enterprise applications and network-related issues using ServiceNow and JIRA, ensuring tickets are resolved within defined SLAs.
- Handle high-priority incidents and Major Incident Management (MIM), initiating bridge calls, coordinating with global SMEs, and driving rapid recovery of services for USA and UK clients.
- Monitor alerts and incident aging, analyze trends and alert volumes, and work with teams to prevent repeat issues and reduce response and resolution times.
- Support Windows and laptop-related issues, engaging with infrastructure teams to restore services and maintain high customer satisfaction.
- Contribute to release and change activities by validating incident impact, communicating risks, and supporting post-release incident handling.
Technical Support Executive
Tech Mahindra Business Process Services
Hyderabad
09.2019 - 03.2020
- Provided technical support for telecom customers in Australia, troubleshooting modem and router issues and delivering first-contact resolution wherever possible.
- Achieved strong customer satisfaction scores and received appreciation certificates for consistently high-quality support.
Pepsico
- I am currently working for pepsico project in client location delivering database assistance in Servicenow domain.
- Wherein I am capable of handling high priority Incidents and MIM also able to analyse the alert volume work on the reason for aging to maintain Incidents in Response time and help to deliver Resolution with the SLA.
Education
B.Com - Computers
Loyola Academy Degree & PG College
Hyderabad, India 03.2014 - 03.2017
Skills
- Incident Management, Major Incident Management (MIM)
- ITIL, ITSM processes, SLA management
- ServiceNow (ITSM), JIRA ticketing tools Release Management and Change coordination
- Infrastructure / Server monitoring and troubleshooting
- Stakeholder communication and bridge call management
- Database Management basics, reporting, root cause analysis
- Linux/Unix command-line fundamentals
Languages
- English
- Hindi
- Telugu
Total Work Experience
6 Years 6 Months
Languages
English
Proficient
C2
Hindi
Proficient
C2
Telugu
Proficient
C2
Projects
- Incident Manager – CoreLogic | 1929 days (overall tenure includes multiple projects)
- Served as Incident Manager, handling critical application and infrastructure incidents, coordinating with cross-functional teams to meet SLA and availability targets.
- ITSM Analyst – Gilead Sciences Worked on ITSM processes in ServiceNow, ensuring accurate incident logging, categorization, and timely updates for stakeholders.
- Database & ServiceNow Support – PepsiCo | 36 months Delivered database and ServiceNow support at client location, managing high-priority incidents and MIM activities in the Servicenow domain.
- Analyzed alert volumes and incident aging to keep response and resolution within SLA and improve overall service reliability.
- I am handling 20 members in a team as a techlead in operations and lead the team to meet client requirements
Certification
- AWS certificate
- ITIL & ITSM Certication
- Received Best Employee Award and certication
Timeline
Infrastructure Service Manager
Cognizant Technologies
09.2020 - Current
Incident Manager
Gilead Sciences
09.2020 - Current
Technical Lead
Cognizant
09.2020 - Current
Technical Support Executive
Tech Mahindra Business Process Services
09.2019 - 03.2020
B.Com - Computers
Loyola Academy Degree & PG College
03.2014 - 03.2017
Pepsico