FinOps in Action

Are "bad tagging" and "unused resources" really the problem, or just the symptoms of a bigger one?

In this episode of FinOps in Action, I sit down with senior FinOps manager Chitra Jadhav to explore what it truly takes to build a FinOps practice that lasts not just one that generates a list of recommendations nobody acts on.

Drawing on eight years of building FinOps programs from the ground up across six or more organizations, Chitra explains how governance, culture, and cross functional collaboration are the real foundations of cloud cost optimization and why FinOps is only as powerful as the trust and authority an organization is willing to give it.

From Architecture Review Boards to Production Readiness Reviews, this conversation unpacks how FinOps can embed itself into the engineering lifecycle before waste ever happens, and why the shift to AI spend makes getting those basics right more urgent than ever.

Here’s what we talked about:

• Why organizational recognition and governance are the prerequisites for any FinOps program to succeed
• How to assess FinOps maturity using the FinOps Foundation framework as a starting point
• Why FinOps is a team sport and how to engage finance, engineering, procurement, and application teams
• What ARBs and Production Readiness Reviews are and how FinOps earns a seat at the table
• How to approach optimization when native cloud provider recommendations run dry
• The importance of the FinOps champion model when working across large engineering organizations

Chapters:

00:47 Meet Chitra Jadhav

01:56 Why FinOps Matters

03:37 Starting From Scratch

03:52 Maturity Assessment Basics

04:48 Stakeholder Engagement Model

05:56 Where FinOps Reports

07:16 Defining Governance

08:14 FinOps Checkpoints ARB PRR

10:42 What Is an ARB

12:51 Running ARB Without Bloat

16:38 Shift Left to Optimization

18:22 Champion Model and Visibility

21:05 Authority Trust and Culture

25:29 Realistic Goals and Commitments

29:20 Beyond Native Recommendations AI

33:02 AI Spend and Future Wrap

 🎧 Subscribe for more FinOps leadership conversations → https://www.finopsinaction.com/ 

Quote of the Show:

"Instead of paying that money and incurring that waste, you are taking some steps proactively by making sure that you are present at these discussions." - Chitra Jadhav

Links:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chitrajadhav/ 
• Website: https://www.rogers.com/ 

Ways to Tune In:

• Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/f25a9d18-c12f-4ee4-93f5-2aa96e509b55 
• Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/finops-in-action/id1790497808 
• iHeart Radio: https://iheart.com/podcast/268443483/ 
• Podchaser: https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/finops-in-action-5958339 
• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3IpjMc3qxDXZAjic5Zq21t 
• Substack: https://finopsinaction.substack.com/ 
• Transistor: finopsinaction.com 
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PointFive_Inc 

What if your biggest cloud inefficiency isn’t how much you’re using, but how long your workloads are running?

In this special episode of FinOps in Action, PointFive’s Co-Founder and CPO, Gal Ben David sits down with Matan Ben-Ishay, leading FP&A, Engineering, and Cloud Infrastructure at Credit Karma, to unpack a real world cloud efficiency discovery that led to tens of millions of dollars in savings without reducing usage or cutting performance.

Matan shares how a simple assumption about “cheaper” CPUs quietly inflated costs, why billing data alone didn’t reveal the problem, and how true FinOps impact only happens when finance and engineering work side by side.

We also covered how FinOps wins happen at the intersection of finance, engineering, and product and how understanding accounting concepts is a career advantage in FinOps.

Here’s what we talked about:

• How a hidden GCP dataflow inefficiency cost tens of millions until Matan sat with engineers and discovered faster CPUs actually cost less per hour
• Why rigid governance policies backfire and how flexible guidelines that encourage engineers to evaluate their actual workload needs prevent waste
• Why FinOps professionals need to understand accounting concepts (depreciation, amortization, commitments)
• The emerging need for cloud efficiency engineers embedded in teams who can bridge the gap between FinOps strategy and hands on optimization work
• How running parallel tests of old vs. new approaches proves value to skeptical engineers and turns short-term testing costs into long-term savings
• The structural friction between engineering OKRs (focused on launches and reliability) and cost efficiency, and why engineers should treat cloud spend like any other company resource

Chapters:

00:00 FinOps Is Everyone’s Job

00:16 Special Episode Setup

01:27 Meet Matan Ben-Ishay

02:14 The Incentives Mistake

05:12 Speed vs Cost in AI

07:30 How to Motivate Engineers

10:19 Scaling Best Practices Org-Wide

13:27 Where FinOps Should Sit

18:02 Guardrails and Shared Ownership

20:55 Fleet Guardrails Matter

21:38 Hidden Waste Over Time

22:47 Can We Prevent Waste

25:56 Tactical vs Strategic Waste

27:00 FinOps on GCP Reality

29:14 Commitment Forecasting Playbook

32:30 FinOps Parenting Hacks

35:31 Personal Picks and Growth

37:53 Closing and Where to Connect

🎧 Subscribe for more FinOps leadership conversations → https://www.finopsinaction.com/ 

Quote of the Show:

• “We need those cloud efficiency engineers in order to understand.” - Matan Ben-Ishay

Links:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matan-ben-ishay/ 
• Website: https://www.creditkarma.com/ 

Ways to Tune In:

• Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/f25a9d18-c12f-4ee4-93f5-2aa96e509b55 
• Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/finops-in-action/id1790497808 
• iHeart Radio: https://iheart.com/podcast/268443483/ 
• Podchaser: https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/finops-in-action-5958339 
• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3IpjMc3qxDXZAjic5Zq21t 
• Substack: https://finopsinaction.substack.com/ 
• Transistor: finopsinaction.com 
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PointFiveCloudCostEfficiency 

How do you make cloud data costs transparent and actionable when thousands of users share the same platform?

In this episode of FinOps in Action, I sit down with Oliver Milke from TD, who shares how he built a Data FinOps practice from the ground up inside a large financial institution, starting as a team of one and scaling into a dedicated function.

Coming from a background in economics and finance, Oliver offers a unique perspective on cloud cost optimization. Rather than focusing solely on infrastructure, his team goes one level deeper: tracking and allocating costs at the data layer, down to individual tables, workloads, and user groups.

The conversation explores why traditional FinOps models fall short for shared data platforms, how transparency drives accountability, and what it takes to operationalize cost awareness across thousands of users. Oliver also breaks down the role of education, chargeback, and engineering collaboration in building a sustainable FinOps practice.

Here’s what we talked about:

• What “Data FinOps” is and how it differs from traditional FinOps
• Why shared data platforms require a fundamentally different cost model
• Building cost visibility down to the table and workload level
• Moving from showback to chargeback and how it shifts user behavior
• Platform vs. workload-level optimization strategies
• The role of education and change management in FinOps success

Chapters:

00:00 - Data FinOps Origins

00:20 - Show Intro Guest Setup

01:40 - What Is Data FinOps

03:37 - Cloud Migration Spark

05:03 - Finance Mindset Meets Engineering

06:22 - FinOps Hub Cost Transparency

07:59 - Monthly Reviews And Chargeback

10:09 - Optimization Strategy Overview

12:17 - Databricks Efficiency Playbook

17:31 - Spot Instances Adoption

19:45 - Education As A Pillar

23:24 - Building The FinOps Team

25:59 - Advice For New Practitioners

28:06 - AI In FinOps Next Wave

30:55 - Running For Campfire Circle

33:03 - Closing And Where To Connect

 🎧 Subscribe for more FinOps leadership conversations → https://www.finopsinaction.com/ 

Quote of the Show:
“We recognized that this cannot be a one-off, but it needs to be a permanent ongoing thing.” - Oliver Milke

Links:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/oliver-milke/ 
• Website: https://www.td.com/us/en/personal-banking 

Ways to Tune In:

• Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/f25a9d18-c12f-4ee4-93f5-2aa96e509b55 
• Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/finops-in-action/id1790497808 
• iHeart Radio: https://iheart.com/podcast/268443483/ 
• Podchaser: https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/finops-in-action-5958339 
• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3IpjMc3qxDXZAjic5Zq21t 
• Substack: https://finopsinaction.substack.com/ 
• Transistor: finopsinaction.com 
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PointFive_Inc 

Are “idle resources” really the problem, or just the easiest one to fix?

In this episode of FinOps in Action, I sit down with cloud architect and engineer Shailaja Beeram to explore a fundamentally different perspective: cost inefficiencies don’t start in the billing file, but in architectural decisions made long before deployment.

Drawing on over 15 years of experience across AWS, Azure, and GCP, Shailaja explains how the way systems are designed, scaled, and evolved over time has a far greater impact on cloud spend than most teams realize.

From “zombie” networking resources to overlooked outbound traffic patterns, this conversation unpacks the hidden layers of cloud cost and why FinOps and architecture must converge to solve them.

Here’s what we talked about:

• Why cloud inefficiencies often stem from architecture and not just unused resources
• How NAT Gateways and private endpoints quietly drive unnecessary spend
• What “zombie resources” are and how they accumulate over time
• Why background traffic can mask true resource idleness
• The importance of revisiting architectural decisions as systems evolve
• The growing convergence of FinOps and cloud architecture

Chapters:

00:00 - Architecture Drives Cost

00:34 - Meet the Guest Architect

01:46 - When Cost Became the Job

03:04 - Networking Zombie Resources

05:32 - NAT Gateway Design Traps

07:11 - Spotting Hidden Traffic

10:34 - Azure Functions NAT Story

12:30 - Private Endpoints and Drift

16:53 - Shift Left Cost Awareness

19:20 - Balancing Risk and Cost

22:46 - Advice for Both Sides

26:41 - AI Impact on FinOps

27:53 - Volunteering and Closing

30:37 - Outro and Sponsor

 🎧 Subscribe for more FinOps leadership conversations → https://www.finopsinaction.com/ 

Quote of the Show:

• “FinOps… it doesn’t need to be separated. It should be a part of how you think about the architecture.” - Shailaja Beeram

Links:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shailaja-beeram-82324310a/ 

Ways to Tune In:

• Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/f25a9d18-c12f-4ee4-93f5-2aa96e509b55 
• Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/finops-in-action/id1790497808 
• iHeart Radio: https://iheart.com/podcast/268443483/ 
• Podchaser: https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/finops-in-action-5958339 
• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3IpjMc3qxDXZAjic5Zq21t 
• Substack: https://finopsinaction.substack.com/ 
• Transistor: finopsinaction.com 
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PointFiveCloudCostEfficiency 

Are you actually measuring the value of your cloud spend or just tracking the cost?

In this episode of FinOps in Action, I sit down with Kevin Mueller, Principal Architect of Cloud FinOps at Presidio, to unpack one of the most talked-about and most misunderstood concepts in FinOps: unit economics.

With over 20 years of experience spanning software engineering, AWS SaaS architecture, and cloud financial management, Kevin shares a grounded, practical perspective on why most organizations struggle to implement unit economics and how to actually get started.

The conversation explores the gap between visibility and action, why traditional cost allocation models fall short, and how engineering, product, finance, and sales all benefit when cloud spend is tied directly to business value. Kevin also dives into real-world examples, from optimizing SQL queries and Kubernetes workloads to navigating the growing complexity of AI-driven infrastructure.

If you’ve ever wondered how to move beyond dashboards and into meaningful optimization, or how to prove that your cloud investment is truly productive, this episode is for you.

Here’s what we talked about:

• Why most companies still aren’t doing unit economics (and what separates those who do it well)
• The difference between unit metrics and unit economics
• How to move from high-level allocation to actionable, engineering-driven insights
• How to approach tagging without overcomplicating your system
• Why AI is the next major FinOps challenge (and opportunity)
• The biggest challenges with shared resources like Kubernetes and what actually drives optimization

Chapters:

00:00 - Cloud Cost Tradeoffs

01:31 - Kevin’s FinOps Journey

03:13 - Unit Economics Reality Check

04:18 - Defining Unit Economics

05:46 - How to Implement It

09:26 - Metrics That Drive Action

14:10 - Allocation Products vs Teams

20:26 - Tagging Without Pain

23:02 - Kubernetes Cost Challenges

24:51 - K8s Optimization Basics

26:18 - Architecture Choices with Units

28:04 - AI as Shared Spend

30:13 - Measuring AI Value

32:28 - AI for FinOps Teams

35:41 - Life on the Farm

37:54 - Wrap Up and Where to Connect

 🎧 Subscribe for more FinOps leadership conversations → https://www.finopsinaction.com/ 

Quote of the Show:

• “It's so easy in FinOps to measure all of this stuff, put it in a dashboard and look at it and feel happy that it's there, but you need to drive towards action.” - Kevin Mueller

Links:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevinmueller/ 
• Website: https://www.presidio.com/ 

Ways to Tune In:

• Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/f25a9d18-c12f-4ee4-93f5-2aa96e509b55 
• Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/finops-in-action/id1790497808 
• iHeart Radio: https://iheart.com/podcast/268443483/ 
• Podchaser: https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/finops-in-action-5958339 
• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3IpjMc3qxDXZAjic5Zq21t 
• Substack: https://finopsinaction.substack.com/ 
• Transistor: finopsinaction.com 
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PointFiveCloudCostEfficiency 

Why do cloud costs stay high even after you build all the right dashboards?

In this episode of FinOps in Action, I sit down with Cristian Magherusan-Stanciu, Founder and Cloud Optimization Specialist at Leaner Cloud. With over 20 years in systems engineering and a background at Nokia, HERE Technologies, and AWS, Cristian built AutoSpotting, an open source tool that has helped more than 10,000 customers save money on EC2.

Cristian shared his hard-won framework for turning cloud cost insights into real savings, why automation alone will never be enough, and how AI has multiplied his output as a solo operator by an order of magnitude.

We also covered the hidden business context that can turn a routine optimization into a $30K/month win, and why cost avoidance is just as important as cost reduction when your cloud bill keeps growing.

Here’s what we talked about:

• Dashboards are only half the story and prioritize action over visibility. The biggest gains come to teams that actually implement recommendations, not just track them.
• Right size incrementally, not aggressively. Cutting a resource by 8x in one step is risky instead halve it, observe, and iterate to avoid introducing performance problems.
• Match your optimization approach to the application’s needs. Latency sensitive workloads, HA setups, and DR resources may appear wasteful but serve critical purposes and always bring engineering context into the conversation.
• Look beyond the metric to find the real opportunity. A $30K/month Aurora IO bill pointed to a forgotten database no one needed anymore and the fix wasn’t optimization, it was deletion.
• Track cost avoidance, not just savings. In high-growth environments, a flat or rising bill can still represent millions saved and measure what you would have paid without the work.
• AI has changed the game for solo practitioners. Cristian built in weeks what previously took a year or two, enabling him to ship a SaaS product and 30+ optimization tools as a one-person shop.

Chapters:

00:00 - Dashboards Don't Save Money

00:19 - Show And Guest Intro

01:47 - Take Action First

04:00 - From Level Zero To Savings

06:08 - Prioritize Engineer Time

07:35 - Automation Without Breaking Things

10:07 - Working With DevOps And Devs

12:05 - When Engineers Push Back

14:17 - Cost Vs Risk And Context

16:09 - Big Wins That Repeat

20:00 - Common Waste Patterns

21:17 - The 30K Database Shutdown

24:19 - Proving Value Amid Growth

31:44 - AI Boosting FinOps Output

 🎧 Subscribe for more FinOps leadership conversations → https://www.finopsinaction.com/ 

Quote of the Show:

• "In just a few weeks with AI, I built what previously would have taken me a year or two. It's at least an order of magnitude more output per unit of time." - Cristian Magherusan-Stanciu

Links:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cristimagherusan/ 
• Website: https://leanercloud.com/ 
• Website: https://autospotting.io/ 

Ways to Tune In:

• Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/f25a9d18-c12f-4ee4-93f5-2aa96e509b55 
• Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/finops-in-action/id1790497808 
• iHeart Radio: https://iheart.com/podcast/268443483/ 
• Podchaser: https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/finops-in-action-5958339 
• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3IpjMc3qxDXZAjic5Zq21t 
• Substack: https://finopsinaction.substack.com/ 
• Transistor: finopsinaction.com 
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PointFiveCloudCostEfficiency 

Why do so many FinOps practitioners miss the biggest savings opportunities, and what does getting technical have to do with it?

In this episode of FinOps in Action, I sit down with Nick Sudarikov, Finance Director of Technology Operations at InvestCloud, to break down how a background in finance and capital markets can actually make you a sharper, more effective FinOps practitioner.

Nick shares how he went from investment banker to hands on FinOps engineer, built a local AI powered stack to query billing data in plain English, and uncovered years of forgotten cloud spend hiding in plain sight.

We also cover why most cost tools will never catch your biggest waste, how to map cloud spend to real business value, and what it actually takes to have meaningful conversations with engineering teams. 

Here’s what we talked about:

• Why FinOps practitioners should set up their own cloud accounts and get hands-on experience with the technology
• How understanding engineering workflows changes the conversation with tech teams
• The hidden cost problem that anomaly detection tools will never catch
• How Nick uses DuckDB, Parquet files, and AI to query billing data in plain English
• Why AI is set to boost FinOps productivity by a factor of 10 and which tools risk losing market share if they don't adapt
• The importance of mapping cloud spend to business value before making any optimization recommendations 

Chapters:

00:00 - Cost Tool Reality Check

00:17 - Show Intro and Guest

01:36 - Why FinOps Needs Hands On

03:28 - Automation and AI Effort

04:23 - From Finance to Tech

06:57 - Early Cloud and Cost Lessons

10:58 - Startups vs Enterprise Scale

12:04 - Legacy Workloads and Risk

14:32 - Value Chain Before Optimizing

17:30 - Finding Hidden Waste Patterns

19:48 - Local AI for Billing Data

26:30 - Future AI and Closing

 🎧 Subscribe for more FinOps leadership conversations → https://www.finopsinaction.com/ 

Quote of the Show:

• "If you haven't started a Docker container ever in your life, probably you're missing out on a lot of things in FinOps." - Nick Sudarikov

Links:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikolaysudarikov/
• Website: https://investcloud.com/

Ways to Tune In:

• Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/f25a9d18-c12f-4ee4-93f5-2aa96e509b55 
• Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/finops-in-action/id1790497808 
• iHeart Radio: https://iheart.com/podcast/268443483/ 
• Podchaser: https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/finops-in-action-5958339 
• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3IpjMc3qxDXZAjic5Zq21t 
• Substack: https://finopsinaction.substack.com/ 
• Transistor: finopsinaction.com 
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PointFiveCloudCostEfficiency 

Why are your cloud costs so high and what actually fixes them?

In this episode of FinOps in Action, I sit down with Jason Ward, Lead FinOps Practitioner at C.H. Robinson, to break down how to take control of cloud spend without slowing down engineering.

Jason shares how he went from mechanic to FinOps leader, built a FinOps function from scratch, and uncovered massive savings, including a 90% cost reduction from a single optimization.

We also cover how to work with engineers (not against them), why most cost recommendations fail, and what it really takes to build a sustainable FinOps practice.

Here’s what we talked about:

• How to cut cloud costs without impacting performance
• Why data, not recommendations should drive decisions
• How to get engineers to actually buy into FinOps
• The importance of tagging and cost visibility early on
• When NOT to optimize and why some “waste” is intentional
• How AI is changing cloud spend and what to watch out for

Chapters:

00:00 - Why Engineers Ignore Small Savings

01:45 - From Mechanic to Cloud Engineer

03:48 - Discovering Cloud Cost Impact

04:48 - Starting FinOps at CH Robinson

06:17 - Early Wins VM Right Sizing

07:19 - Handling Engineer Pushback

09:51 - Tooling Shift to Datadog

11:12 - AKS Tuning 90 Percent Savings

13:15 - Building a Real FinOps Program

14:29 - Executive Buy In and Chargeback

17:38 - Kubernetes Scaling and Hybrid Costs

24:31 - AI Spend and Career Wrap Up

 🎧 Subscribe for more FinOps leadership conversations → https://www.finopsinaction.com/ 

Quote of the Show:

• “Without that executive buy-in… most engineers… don’t care so much about the bottom line.” – Jason Ward

Links:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jward2/
• Website: https://www.chrobinson.com/en-us/

Ways to Tune In:

• Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/f25a9d18-c12f-4ee4-93f5-2aa96e509b55 
• Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/finops-in-action/id1790497808 
• iHeart Radio: https://iheart.com/podcast/268443483/ 
• Podchaser: https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/finops-in-action-5958339 
• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3IpjMc3qxDXZAjic5Zq21t 
• Substack: https://finopsinaction.substack.com/ 
• Transistor: finopsinaction.com 
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PointFiveCloudCostEfficiency 

What does it really take to turn cloud cost chaos into a sustainable FinOps practice, and why do most organizations get it wrong from the start?

In this episode of FinOps in Action, I sit down with Loic Fournier, Senior Technical Account Manager at AWS and 2025 AWS Technical Field Community Legend. With over 25 years in technology, from mainframes to modern cloud, Loic has become one of the most recognized voices in AWS cost optimization.

Loic shared how the biggest mistake organizations make is treating FinOps as a one-time project rather than an ongoing practice, and what it actually takes to build governance that sticks across people, processes, and technology.

We also covered the AWS native tools available to every organization for free, the link between cost optimization and sustainability, and how AI workloads are reshaping FinOps priorities heading into 2026.

Here’s what we talked about:

• Why FinOps fails when treated as a project
• The three pillars of FinOps governance
• How to get executive buy-in
• AWS free tools you should activate today
• The hidden savings hiding in your EBS volumes
• FinOps as a proxy for sustainability
• Managing AI costs before they spiral

Chapters:

• 00:00 – Introduction & Loic’s Background
• 01:29 – The #1 Mistake in FinOps Adoption: Project vs. Practice
• 03:14 – Building FinOps Governance: People, Process & Technology
• 05:15 – Real-World Story: Going from Zero to 30% Cost Savings in 2 Years
• 08:30 – The CFM Capacity Assessment & Measuring FinOps Maturity
• 10:33 – What Separates High-Scoring vs. Low-Scoring FinOps Organizations
• 13:00 – AWS Free Tools: Cost Optimization Hub & Compute Optimizer Explained
• 17:16 – The Efficiency Score: Turning Potential Savings into Real Savings
• 19:38 – The Most Common (and Costly) Cloud Waste: EC2, EBS & Databases
• 25:08 – The Cloud Efficiency Hub & Why FinOps = Sustainability
• 29:35 – AI & FinOps in 2026: Managing Model Costs with Bedrock & Routing
• 37:14 – Life in Geneva, Midnight Climbing & Closing Thoughts

 🎧 Subscribe for more FinOps leadership conversations → https://www.finopsinaction.com/ 

Quote of the Show:

• “FinOps is a proxy for sustainability. When you help a customer perform better in FinOps, you are also helping save the world a little bit.”- Loic Fournier

Links:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/loicfournier/
• Website: https://aws.amazon.com/

Ways to Tune In:

• Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/f25a9d18-c12f-4ee4-93f5-2aa96e509b55 
• Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/finops-in-action/id1790497808 
• iHeart Radio: https://iheart.com/podcast/268443483/ 
• Podchaser: https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/finops-in-action-5958339 
• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3IpjMc3qxDXZAjic5Zq21t 
• Substack: https://finopsinaction.substack.com/ 
• Transistor: finopsinaction.com 
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PointFiveCloudCostEfficiency 

Why does cloud cost optimization only start after it’s already too late?

In this episode of FinOps in Action, I sit down with Jai Padmanabhan, who shares why cloud cost is no longer just a finance concern; it’s a core responsibility for engineering teams. Drawing on decades of experience leading platforms in complex and regulated environments, Jai explains how the shift to the cloud fundamentally changed how organizations think about cost, and why treating it as an afterthought leads to reactive, high-pressure optimization later on.

He breaks down how teams can build cost awareness into their day-to-day workflows, from setting budgets and enforcing guardrails to leveraging automation that scales infrastructure up and down based on real demand. 

Jai also explores the trade-offs between efficiency and reliability, emphasizing why SLAs should always take priority in production and how over-optimization can introduce unintended consequences. From storage strategies in regulated industries to the hidden complexity of data transfer costs, he shares practical insights on where organizations commonly overspend and how to avoid it.

Here’s what we talked about:

• The dangers of reactive cost optimization after the bill shows up
• Building cost awareness into engineering teams through budgets and guardrails
• How Kubernetes changes the approach to cost optimization
• Storage optimization strategies, especially in regulated industries
• How AI usage is impacting cloud spend (and why it’s still early)
• Why FinOps should be treated as everyone’s responsibility

Chapters:

00:00 - FinOps First Class & Guest Intro

01:14 - Cost Becomes Engineering

06:59 - Kubernetes Autoscaling

10:26 - Risk Versus Savings

12:48 - Dev Prod Mindset

14:36 - Storage In Regulated

18:31 - Big Savings Surprises

22:24 - Day One Playbook

24:40 - AI Spend Management

27:57 - Security And Compliance

31:58 - Final FinOps Advice

37:03 - Connect And Wrap

 🎧 Subscribe for more FinOps leadership conversations → https://www.finopsinaction.com/ 

Quote of the Show:

• “ Treat cloud costs as if you were paying a bill from your credit card.” - Jai Padmanabhan

Links:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaishankar-padmanabhan-software-executive/ 

Ways to Tune In:

• Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/f25a9d18-c12f-4ee4-93f5-2aa96e509b55 
• Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/finops-in-action/id1790497808 
• iHeart Radio: https://iheart.com/podcast/268443483/ 
• Podchaser: https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/finops-in-action-5958339 
• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3IpjMc3qxDXZAjic5Zq21t 
• Substack: https://finopsinaction.substack.com/ 
• Transistor: finopsinaction.com 
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PointFiveCloudCostEfficiency