Headline

Principal Engineer, Multi-Cloud Networking & Security | ZTNA · SASE · AI Security Gateway · MCP/A2A · eBPF | 3 Patents | Startup Builder (Soha→Akamai, Prosimo, Aviatrix)

About

I'm a Principal Engineer | Technical Leader | Product Architect who love to build new products and a leader who builds teams — usually both at once. Twenty years in multi-cloud networking and security, all inside early-stage startups: Soha Systems (acquired by Akamai), Prosimo, and Aviatrix. Across Soha Systems (acquired by Akamai), Prosimo, and Aviatrix, I've joined at the 0-to-1 stage, established architecture and engineering culture from scratch, and shipped production-grade multi-cloud security and networking platforms. I hold 3 US Patents in cryptographic security and identity federation — IP I helped create at the bench. 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗜 𝗯𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴: • 20 years hands-on expertise in ZTNA, SASE, AI Security Gateways, eBPF observability, and AI-era protocol infrastructure (MCP/A2A) across AWS, Azure, and GCP • Scaled engineering teams from 0 to 15, defined SDLC from scratch, 100% on-schedule delivery • Scaled multi-cloud platform throughput from 1 Gbps to 80 Gbps under real enterprise traffic • AI-enabled Network Security Gateway targeting MCP/A2A protocol governance and deep packet inspection • Led IPv6 from zero to production via sprint — owned architecture, wrote code, showcased in enterprise executive demos • Designed Identity Provider (IdP) architecture, SAML, WS-Federation, Duo MFA, and integrated Akamai CDN caching for authenticated enterprise content delivery • Represented engineering at customer sites across Asia-Pacific — led architecture discussions with Fortune 500 engineering leaders, translating complex security platform capabilities into business outcomes that retained and expanded multi-million dollar contracts. • Comfortable in the room with enterprise CTOs, engineering leaders, and technical architects — from whiteboard to contract, bridging product vision and customer reality. 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽 𝗽𝗵𝗶𝗹𝗼𝘀𝗼𝗽𝗵𝘆: Mentored by Doug Merritt (CEO, Splunk) and Joshua Medcalf. That training — radical accountability, high-performance culture, teams that own outcomes — shapes how I build every engineering organisation. 𝗧𝗲𝗰𝗵 𝗜 𝗹𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗶𝗻:C · Go · Python · Lua · eBPF · Kubernetes · Nginx · HAProxy · Apache Traffic Server · AWS (TGW, VPC, GWLB, PrivateLink, Direct Connect) · Azure (ExpressRoute, VWAN) · GCP · SAML · OIDC · TLS · MCP · A2A · AI Guardrails · RAG · LangChain

Location

Bangalore Urban

AI stack

claude code

cursor

kimi

kiro

mcp

ollama

Work experience

Principal Engineer at Aviatrix, Jan 2025 - Present · 1 yr 9 mos, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India, Building next-generation AI-era network security infrastructure at Aviatrix. 🔹 AI-Enabled Network Security Gateway — AI gateway targeting MCP/A2A protocol governance, AI guardrail enforcement, and deep packet inspection (DPI). 🔹 Multi-Cloud IPv6 — Took greenfield IPv6 capability from zero to production in agile environment. Owned architecture end-to-end, wrote production code, and showcased in enterprise executive demos generating immediate customer pipeline interest. 🔹 Team Culture & Delivery — Established a high-trust, focused engineering environment; partnered with PM, QA, UI, and customer support to align milestones and maintain delivery cadence.

Technical Engineering Manager at Prosimo.io, May 2021 - Dec 2024 · 3 yrs 8 mos, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India, Joined Prosimo's India engineering organisation as early engineer and architected the multi-cloud networking platform. 🔹 Team 0 to 15 — Recruited and built the engineering team. Defined SDLC, hiring profiles, code review culture. 100% on-schedule delivery over 3+ years. 🔹 Platform Throughput — Engineered underlay networking across AWS (TGW, PrivateLink, VPC Peering, Direct Connect), Azure (ExpressRoute), and GCP. Scaled throughput from 1 Gbps to 80 Gbps under real enterprise traffic. 🔹 eBPF Observability — Led eBPF adoption for policy enforcement, packet inspection, and real-time network visibility — a key differentiator in Prosimo's next-gen service mesh positioning. 🔹 AI-Driven Observability — Delivered LLaMA2-based GenAI PoC for log and traffic analysis using RAG and LangChain. 🔹 Security Services — Deployed Firewall-as-a-Service, NAT Gateway, and Kubernetes-based infrastructure across AWS, GCP, Azure, and on-premises.

Senior Software Engineer Technical Lead at Akamai Technologies, Oct 2016 - May 2021 · 4 yrs 8 mos, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India, Joined as part of the Soha Systems acquisition. Continued building the enterprise SASE platform under a CTO-driven mandate for Fortune 500 secure access. 🔹 Global SASE Platform — Architected and delivered a Secure Access Service Edge platform for Fortune 500 enterprises. Owned architecture end-to-end and authored production modules for the identity and access layer. 🔹 Identity Provider Architecture — Designed IdP server and proxy. Integrated SAML, WS-Federation, and Duo Push MFA. Integrated Enterprise Application Access (EAA) as a SAML provider to AWS. 🔹 Enterprise Caching — Integrated Akamai CDN caching with EAA to serve authenticated enterprise content at global scale — a unique identity-aware caching mechanism reducing latency while enforcing security policy. 🔹 Enterprise Revenue — Led technical onboarding for Tier-1 accounts through hands-on customer engagement across Asia-Pacific. Contributed to multi-million dollar contract retention and expansion.

Lead Software Engineer at Soha Systems, Sep 2014 - Sep 2016 · 2 yrs 1 mo, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India, Early engineer at Soha Systems — a Zero Trust startup successfully acquired by Akamai Technologies. Built the core platform IP that made the acquisition viable. 🔹 ZTNA Platform Core — Designed and built the foundational Zero Trust Network Access platform from scratch. Became the basis of Akamai's enterprise secure access product and underpinned the acquisition value. 🔹 Cryptographic Security Framework — Designed a cloud encryption model where data could only be decrypted within the customer's data centre. Forms the basis of 2 of the 3 granted US Patents. 🔹 NGINX Engineering — Implemented high-performance NGINX modules for caching, health checks, load balancing, and ICAP virus scanning. Built connector middleware bridging on-prem and cloud. Integrated SPDY for connection stitching and multiplexing. ✅ Outcome: Company acquired by Akamai Technologies.

Development Lead at California Software, Oct 2006 - Aug 2014 · 7 yrs 11 mos, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India, Founding engineer on the Radware team at Calsoft Labs, delivering industry-first virtualized networking products. 🔹 Industry-First Virtualized Load Balancer — Delivered a functional Alteon Load Balancer prototype in 90 days. Production-ready in 12 months. Led virtualisation project architecture including travel to Israel for project delivery. 🔹 L2–L7 Networking — Deep expertise across STP, VRRP, GSLB, SIP, TCP, cookie persistence, and rule-based filtering. Implemented IPC for packet distribution across multiple processes.

Education

Master's degree, Embedded Systems, Manipal university

Bachelor of Engineering (B.E.), Electrical Enginnering, ITER