How do you scale FinOps in a way that actually engages engineers, reduces waste, and drives cloud efficiency without sacrificing velocity?

In this episode of FinOps in Action, I sat down with Sridhar Ayala, Director of FinOps at Adobe, to explore how Adobe approaches FinOps at scale—shifting the focus from just cost savings to enabling engineering efficiency, reducing waste, and expanding margin.

Sridhar shares Adobe’s unique FinOps strategy, including how they define waste as "unintentional spend," how they use gamification and marketing to drive adoption, and why understanding engineering context is critical to long-term success. He also reveals Adobe’s flagship initiatives like “ARM 24 for 24” and “CPU 26 for 26,” designed to drive cloud efficiency and reduce environmental impact.

Here’s what we talked about:

• Why Adobe defines cloud waste as “unintentional spend”

• How to gamify FinOps to engage engineering teams

• The marketing mindset that helps FinOps teams drive adoption

• Long-term FinOps campaigns that actually work

• Why engineering context is key to cloud cost optimization

If you're trying to scale a FinOps practice, engage engineering teams, and reduce cloud waste—this conversation is packed with insights you can use right now.

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Quote of the Show:

• "There's no one definition of waste. Waste is only unintentional spend. As long as you're intentionally doing something, it can't be wasteful." - Sridhar Ayala

Links:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sridharayala/
• Website: https://www.adobe.com/

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