Headline

Senior/Staff Engineer & Architect | 15+ Yrs | Java, Go, Python | Microservices, Kubernetes, OpenTelemetry | GenAI / LLM Agents (MCP) | Telecom OSS/NMS @ Ciena

About

🏗️ I architect cloud-native platforms that turn complex telecom networks into intelligent, observable, AI-augmented systems. 15+ years building OSS/NMS and data collection platforms for global telecom clients including Ciena Corporation, AT&T, and Verizon. Currently leading the architecture of NXT-GEN-DC — a Go microservices platform replacing a legacy Apache NiFi system — with full OpenTelemetry observability and production GenAI integration. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔧 What I bring to the table: ▪ Architecture & Tech Leadership — End-to-end ownership of microservices platforms, from API design and service boundaries to Kubernetes deployment and observability. I've led offshore + onsite teams across India and Canada. ▪ Polyglot Engineering — Deep Java (Core Java, Spring Boot, Apache NiFi custom processors) and production Go (microservices, OpenTelemetry custom receivers/exporters). Python for automation, AI agents, and data pipelines. ▪ Telecom Domain Mastery — 15+ years across EMS/NMS, OSS/BSS, Ciena Navigator/MCP, TL1, gNMI, and service assurance for tier-1 carriers. ▪ GenAI in Production — Built AI Agent tooling using Claude/Sonnet, Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers, and ReAct reasoning loops for intelligent network operations. Evaluated Ollama/Llama for on-prem enterprise deployments. ▪ Full-Stack Observability — OpenTelemetry, Jaeger, Prometheus, Grafana — implemented as a first-class concern, not an afterthought. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📊 Recent wins: → Architected NXT-GEN-DC from scratch — 3x throughput improvement over the legacy NiFi-based pipeline. → Built a Navigator AI Agent (Python + Ollama + MCP) that lets engineers query telecom networks in natural language. → Drove organizational adoption of MCP, GenAI, and OpenTelemetry through internal learning sessions and demos. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📧 pratik.pande87@gmail.com

Location

Bengaluru

AI stack

anthropic apis

claude code

claude

langchain

mcp

ollama

Work experience

Technical Lead at ACL Digital, Apr 2026 - Present · 5 mos, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India

Module Leader at ACL Digital, Apr 2019 - Mar 2026 · 7 yrs, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India, Tech Lead & Architect for Ciena Corporation's network management data platforms — building cloud-native microservices that ingest, process, and observe telecom network telemetry at scale. Client: Ciena Corporation (Canada). ▪ NXT-GEN-DC | Go, Kubernetes, OpenTelemetry Architecting from scratch — current flagship project. Designed Go microservices platform replacing legacy Apache NiFi pipeline with 3x throughput improvement. Multi-protocol ingestion (HTTP, WebSocket, gRPC) for Alarms, PM, MCPC, 6500 Baseline telemetry. Custom OpenTelemetry receivers/exporters with Jaeger, Prometheus, Grafana observability stack. GitHub Actions CI/CD for Docker builds and Kubernetes-ready AWS deployments. ▪ AI Agent Tooling | Python, Claude, MCP, Go Building production GenAI for telecom operations. Navigator AI Agent using Claude Sonnet with ReAct reasoning loops for intelligent network querying. MCP (Model Context Protocol) server integration enabling LLMs to invoke network APIs as tools. Go HTTP bridges as secure middleware between LLM agents and Ciena Navigator REST APIs. Evaluated Ollama/Llama for on-prem deployment. Delivered org-wide MCP, AI Agents, and GenAI learning sessions. ▪ RDC | Java, Spring Boot, Apache NiFi, Kafka Production platform for tier-1 carrier deployments. Led Java/NiFi data collection with dual Kafka (pre-7.2) and gRPC (7.2+) protocol support. Built custom NiFi processors: GNMI-to-RDC converter, FRE processor with PostgreSQL integration. ▪ NAVA | Java, JavaFX, TL1 Team Lead for 4-member offshore team coordinating with Ciena Montreal onsite team. Designed network path tracing using DFS algorithm for optical topology shortest-path computation. Drove Swing-to-JavaFX modernization with TL1 protocol compatibility. Stack: Java, Spring Boot, Go, Python, Apache NiFi, Kafka, Docker, Kubernetes, OpenTelemetry, Jaeger, Prometheus, Grafana, gRPC, REST, PostgreSQL, AWS, Claude, MCP, TL1, gNMI

Senior Software Engineer at ACL Digital, Feb 2017 - Mar 2019 · 2 yrs 2 mos, Bangalore,

Software Engineer II at NetScout Systems, Sep 2012 - Jan 2017 · 4 yrs 5 mos, 🌐 Architected High Availability distributed system components for nGeniusONE Service Assurance — NetScout's flagship platform powering network monitoring for tier-1 US carriers. Clients: AT&T, Verizon, and other major US telecom operators. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🏗️ What I built: ▪ Architected HA distributed system components for ASI (Application Service Intelligence) data processing at carrier scale. ▪ Built backend infrastructure for distributed packet data: polling, columnar database logging, query translation, aggregation, and cross-node load balancing. ▪ Developed inter-process and client-server communication frameworks for distributed monitoring environments. ▪ JVM performance tuning, GC selection and analysis, and system security architecture implementation. ▪ Early adopter of Docker and Kubernetes containerization — drove cloud-native modernization of the monitoring platform. ▪ Implemented Media Monitor module end-to-end and Session Analysis launch for multiple network protocols. ▪ Resolved high-priority customer escalations for AT&T and Verizon deployments, working directly with operations teams. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📊 Domain: Service Assurance • Application Performance Monitoring - Packet Data Analysis • ASI Technology • Distributed Query Processing 🛠 Stack: Core Java • HTML5 • XML • Distributed Systems • Docker • Kubernetes • Columnar Databases • JVM Tuning • Linux

Software Engineer at WIPRO TECHNOLOGIES, Jun 2010 - Sep 2012 · 2 yrs 4 mos, Bangalore, 🛰️ Built Core Java applications on EMS/NMS technology for Ciena Corporation — managing optical network elements and performance monitoring data for global telecom deployments. Client: Ciena Corporation, Canada — Optical Manager Element Adapter (OMEA) platform. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🏗️ What I built: ▪ Developed Core Java applications for Network Element enrollment, lifecycle management, and software backup/delivery on Ciena's EMS/NMS platform. ▪ Built Performance Monitoring module with XML parsing for PM data ingestion and database storage. ▪ Applied OOP, multi-threading, and Collections extensively on Solaris and Linux platforms for high-throughput operations. ▪ Coordinated with onsite Ciena teams to clarify requirements, propose solutions, and deliver enhancements. ▪ Owned application development, optimization, unit testing, and debugging end-to-end. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📊 Domain: EMS/NMS • Optical Networking • Performance Monitoring - Network Element Management 🛠 Stack: Core Java • Multi-threading • Collections • OOP • XML - SQL • Solaris • Linux • Eclipse • SQuirreL SQL

Education

Bachelor of Engineering - BE, Computer Science & Engineering, Government College of Engineering, Amravati.