Why this lead architect says T. Rowe Price is ‘the place to be’ for cloud engineering

Early in his college education, Debdutta Das was getting his bachelor’s degree in computer software engineering from India’s Bengal College of Engineering and Technology 125. A handful of years later, he had a scholarship to Florida Atlantic University, where he worked on the reinforcement of nanoparticles to enhance mechanical and fracture properties for the US Navy while earning a dual master’s degree in oceans and mechanical engineering.

Today, the father of three specializes in cloud architecture and works as an enterprise lead solutions architect at global asset management firm T. Rowe Price.

“I like to keep learning and enhancing my skills and certifications,” Das said. “In my free time, I will pick a new topic to learn and try to apply it to what I’m doing at T. Rowe Price so that I can keep adding more value.”

As its fintech capabilities continue to evolve, T. Rowe Price has held the interest of technologists like Das who enjoy the rush of constant innovation and optimization.

“T. Rowe Price is a place where technology and business work side by side,” he said. “As a specialist in cloud architecture, it is my responsibility to ensure our applications are constantly optimized for the cloud and that we are continuously improving those applications based on new and evolving business requirements.”

We sat down with Das to learn more about his role and the growing opportunities for technologists as T. Rowe Price migrates to the cloud.

###

Talk to us about your role and responsibilities.

I lead cloud architecture for distribution and marketing services, or DMS, within the institutional and intermediary unit. We are a giant shop and are migrating to the cloud so that everything is in the same place. It is my responsibility to ensure that our 60+ cloud-based applications are scalable, maintainable and fully optimized, as well as compliant when it comes to security.

Debdutta Das. (Courtesy photo)

What should those who aren’t aware of the technical opportunities at T. Rowe Price know about working for the firm?

For anyone interested in cloud engineering or architecture, this is the place to be.

In today’s world, most of our assets are digitized. As one of the top financial institutions in the global market, T. Rowe Price has a critical need for an advanced, cloud-first platform and the talent to build, scale and maintain it. It’s an exciting time to join our team. We are constantly evolving our work in the cloud and creating our own proprietary products, so here you’ll get a lot of exposure to cloud-based technologies.

Tell us more about the learning and development opportunities for technologists.

T. Rowe Price not only provides a platform for technologists to grow at the enterprise level. It also offers a very strong training curriculum for new hires who want to direct their career path in the tech space.

We partner with major cloud service providers and coaching centers to offer customized training. Internally, we’ve built our own subscription training platform where each associate can choose up to 20 different training topics. Associates are also able to take off a full day for training. Managers are very supportive of employee learning and the optimization of both hard and soft skills.

What is the current size of the tech department?

We have a little over 2,500 engineers working in our tech department. There are four core teams: the tech team, the architecture team, the applications team and a core infrastructure team.

How do you describe the internal culture? 

It’s a very good working environment. Everyone is collaborative and adds value to the organization. We all receive attention and recognition for our work — which is an important part of life.

While we’re all expected to perform and provide value, there is so much support from managers to learn, build yourself up, and get up to speed on life at the firm.

202212-2621296