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Ovais Khan

Principal Engineer @ Snap | Large-Scale Distributed Systems, Data Platforms & ML Infrastructure | ex-Microsoft

Bellevue

21+ years of work experience

Snap Inc.
Mar 201610 yrs 4 mosPresent

Bellevue, WA

Lead infrastructure strategy and architecture across Snap’s distributed systems and data platform ecosystem, including data warehousing, large-scale data processing, event infrastructure, identity, graph ML, storage, caching, and social graph. Architected foundational infrastructure platforms that improved scalability, reliability, developer velocity, and operational efficiency across product and ML organizations. Key initiatives include Snap’s identity and relationship platform, storage abstractions with transparent caching integration, ValKey caching platform, and ML Feature Store overhaul.
Microsoft
Oct 20078 yrs 6 mosMar 2016

Redmond, WA

Played a pivotal role in the development of Azure Storage, focusing on its indexing and partitioning layer. My contributions included implementing copy on write semantics for VM efficiency and enhancing SSD-based premium storage performance. Additionally, I was instrumental in reducing partition recovery time and improving replication lag, which significantly optimized storage operations for numerous Microsoft services. Prior to that I was part of the SharePoint core team where I designed and implemented Share via Link & infrastructure pieces that power SharePoint Social, Identity and Profile
KalSoft (Pvt.) Ltd.
Feb 20052 yrs 8 mosSep 2007

Worked as enterprise integration consultant, technical lead, software engineer and analyst for various internal and external projects in the areas of telecommunications, finance, banking, and e-learning.

Ovais’s AI Stack

n8n
n8n
notion
notion
openai
openai
perplexity
perplexity

Education

National University of Computer and Emerging Sciences

MS, Computer Science

National University of Computer and Emerging Sciences

20022 yrs2004

BCS, Computer Science

FAST Institute of Computer Science, University of Karachi

19992 yrs2001

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Headline

Principal Engineer @ Snap | Large-Scale Distributed Systems, Data Platforms & ML Infrastructure | ex-Microsoft

About

Over the past 18 years, I’ve built and led large-scale distributed systems and data infrastructure powering products used by hundreds of millions of users worldwide. My work spans data warehousing, large-scale data processing, graph and ML platforms, identity systems, storage, caching and cloud-scale backend architecture. As a Principal Engineer at Snap, I define multi-year infrastructure strategy, architect cross-org platforms, and mentor Staff Engineers driving mission-critical initiatives. My focus: creating resilient, performant systems that accelerate developer velocity and support data driven decision making and product innovation at scale. Previously at Microsoft, I contributed to Azure Storage and SharePoint, helping launch early cloud infrastructure foundations for Office 365. My career has been anchored in solving complex distributed systems problems with simplicity, scalability, and measurable business impact. Specialties: Distributed Systems · Data Infrastructure · Data Warehousing · Large-Scale Data Processing · Event Logging · Data Lineage & Governance · Graph ML Infrastructure · Cloud Storage · Identity & Access · Data Platforms · Technical Leadership · Reliability & Performance

Location

Bellevue

AI stack

n8n

notion

openai

perplexity

Work experience

Principal Software Engineer at Snap Inc., Mar 2016 - Present · 10 yrs 4 mos, Bellevue, WA, Lead infrastructure strategy and architecture across Snap’s distributed systems and data platform ecosystem, including data warehousing, large-scale data processing, event infrastructure, identity, graph ML, storage, caching, and social graph. Architected foundational infrastructure platforms that improved scalability, reliability, developer velocity, and operational efficiency across product and ML organizations. Key initiatives include Snap’s identity and relationship platform, storage abstractions with transparent caching integration, ValKey caching platform, and ML Feature Store overhaul.

Senior Software Engineer at Microsoft, Oct 2007 - Mar 2016 · 8 yrs 6 mos, Redmond, WA, Played a pivotal role in the development of Azure Storage, focusing on its indexing and partitioning layer. My contributions included implementing copy on write semantics for VM efficiency and enhancing SSD-based premium storage performance. Additionally, I was instrumental in reducing partition recovery time and improving replication lag, which significantly optimized storage operations for numerous Microsoft services. Prior to that I was part of the SharePoint core team where I designed and implemented Share via Link & infrastructure pieces that power SharePoint Social, Identity and Profile

Technical Lead at KalSoft (Pvt.) Ltd., Feb 2005 - Sep 2007 · 2 yrs 8 mos, Worked as enterprise integration consultant, technical lead, software engineer and analyst for various internal and external projects in the areas of telecommunications, finance, banking, and e-learning.

Education

MS, Computer Science, National University of Computer and Emerging Sciences

BCS, Computer Science, FAST Institute of Computer Science, University of Karachi