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Surya Kant

@suryakant2

Technical support operations leader at Confluent, delivering 24x7 Kafka support and reducing internal escalations by 25%.

India

Message

At Confluent, I lead a global team delivering 24x7 premium support for Confluent Cloud Platform, Apache Kafka and data streaming solutions. I own critical customer escalations and incident response, and introduced a Support Enablement Program that reduced internal escalations by 25%.

At Red Hat, I established the Customer Success Advocate role and built a customer-focused Experience Engineering team supporting OpenShift and IBM Cloud Pak. Across support operations, I’ve built programs and processes from the ground up, including workforce planning, a Skill Matrix Program and a Distributed SME Program; I also bring deep experience in open source cloud operations, incident management and customer escalations.

Experience

Work history, roles, and key accomplishments

Current

Manager Technical Support Engineering

Current

Confluent

Jul 2024 - Present (2 years 4 months)

Leads a global team delivering 24x7 premium support for Confluent Cloud and Apache Kafka, owning escalations and SLA adherence for enterprise clients across APAC. Introduced Support Enablement Program and Skill Matrix, achieving 25% reduction in internal escalations and 8% faster resolution times.

Confluent Cloud Kafka SLA Management Escalation Management Incident Response Root Cause Analysis Workforce Planning Support Enablement Skills Matrix Distributed SME Customer Satisfaction Cross functional Leadership Mentorship Coaching

Manager Experience Engineering Support & Regional Manager APAC

Red Hat

Jan 2022 - Jul 2024 (2 years 6 months)

Led IBM Cloud Pak support organisation with team leads in multiple regions, owning 24x7 global follow-the-sun coverage and multi-region escalations. Established the Customer Success Advocate role and built a customer-focused Experience Engineering team.

IBM Cloud Pak OpenShift Red Hat Advanced Cluster Security Kubernetes Escalation Management Follow The Sun Support Team Leadership Customer Success Advocate Hybrid cloud Incident Management

Associate Manager Experience Engineering Support

Red Hat

Feb 2020 - Dec 2021 (1 year 10 months)

Led Technical Production Support for Red Hat's hybrid cloud portfolio on OpenShift, ensuring compliance with incident management and escalation protocols. Partnered with Engineering and Product to prioritise bugs and enhancements, and drove process improvement and automation.

OpenShift Incident Management Escalation Management Process Improvement Automation Knowledge Base Talent Pipeline!Training and Compliance Cross Functional Collaboration

Operations Manager – Open Source Cloud

Wipro Limited

Sep 2015 - Jan 2020 (4 years 4 months)

Planned and managed daily cloud operations and capacity planning for a customer-facing production environment, ensuring 24x7 availability of Government portals. Established State Data Centre policies and procedures, and owned DC/DR infrastructure and capacity planning.

Cloud Operations Capacity Planning SLA Reporting Release Management Availability Management Disaster Recovery Security Incident Response CERT In Government Portal AWS

Technical Support Coach

Dell International Services

Oct 2006 - Sep 2015 (8 years 11 months)

Coordinated escalations with vendors, L3s, and Product Development for ticket closure per SLAs. Served as Enterprise SPOC on cross-site forums.

Escalation Management SLA Management Vendor coordination Product Development Cross Site Collaboration

Executive

Abhishek Industries Limited

Aug 2001 - Sep 2006 (5 years 1 month)

Applied Total Quality Management (TQM) to improve efficiency and reduce machine downtime. Led cross-department quality initiatives and owned resource selection, training, and certification.

Quality Management Process Improvement Cross Department Collaboration Resource Management Training Certification