Staff Software Engineer

Navaneeth Rao

I make complex systems dependable.

Search infrastructure, financial platforms, and cloud reliability. I design the systems and build the shared practices behind them.

01 / Selected systems

Engineering with
a measurable impact

Three platforms. Different constraints. Outcomes tied to the systems that delivered them.

Walmart 2024 to present

Serving models.
Scaling search.

Helped drive Search's migration from single-tenant clusters to secure, multi-tenant Kubernetes model serving across locales.

  • Java
  • Python
  • Kubernetes
  • GCP
25%
lower inference latency
99.9%
platform availability

Supporting hundreds of millions of daily search queries.

Read the search platform case study
Explore the engineering

Platform challenge

Move single-tenant Search clusters to shared model-serving infrastructure across tenants and locales.

My contribution

Chose strong tenant resource isolation with selected shared capabilities, designed multi-tier inference routing, and rolled out the migration incrementally with the team, validating isolation and failover before expanding traffic.

Deployment outcome

Deployment practices associated with the architecture contributed to a 40% improvement in deployment cycle time.

Beyond the migration

Built query normalization and tokenization adopted across Search teams, and established architecture governance and distributed systems training.

PayPal 2023 to 2024

Financial risk.
Faster decisions.

Engineered a GCP reporting platform for fraud detection and chargeback analytics, then modernized the data workflows behind it.

  • Java
  • GCP
  • DynamoDB
  • Databricks
10M+
daily transactions processed
30%
lower costs for migrated data workflows

Fraud and chargeback analytics for merchant systems.

Explore the engineering

Platform challenge

Support high-volume risk analytics while modernizing legacy data workflows and improving feature delivery.

My contribution

Built the financial risk reporting platform, orchestrated Databricks analytics, and migrated core RDBMS workflows to DynamoDB.

Additional outcomes

Analytics efficiency improved by 30%. ORM-based data-layer modernization reduced the feature-to-production lifecycle by 50%.

Outcome scope

The reporting platform, Databricks orchestration, and data-layer modernization were distinct parts of the work. The cost reduction relates to the RDBMS-to-DynamoDB workflow migration.

IBM 2016 to 2019

Global infrastructure.
Operational clarity.

Led a team of 10 engineers running monitoring and alerting for IBM Cloud across 50+ data centers and 10,000 servers.

  • Kafka
  • Elasticsearch
  • Grafana
  • Java
99.99%
uptime maintained
$3M+
infrastructure cost reductions

A logging pipeline ingesting 500 TB each day.

Explore the engineering

Platform challenge

Maintain visibility and reliable operations across a global cloud infrastructure footprint.

My contribution

Led monitoring with Icinga, Grafana, and PagerDuty. Built a logging pipeline using Logstash, Kafka, Elasticsearch, and Kibana that informed infrastructure cost reductions.

Operational ownership

Led the cross-functional engineering team and served as the subject-matter expert for L1 escalations on a 15-minute SLA.

Outcome scope

The logging pipeline informed the broader infrastructure cost reductions. The $3M+ figure describes that infrastructure outcome, rather than a measured reduction in log-storage cost alone.

Ford / 2019 to 2023

Making cloud infrastructure usable.

I designed the Azure Right-to-Provision service for subscription creation and budget management, built TypeScript role-based access controls and automated cloud billing, and led end-to-end delivery of Cloud Portal 2.0.

The scope: a shared developer platform bringing provisioning, access, and cost management into the engineering workflow.

Ford experience in the resume

02 / Technical leadership

How I scale
engineering

Shared architecture, reusable platform work, and the people who operate it.

Architecture alignment

Make decisions reusable.

At Walmart, I established architecture governance and distributed systems training, alongside query normalization and tokenization adopted across Search teams.

Explore the cross-team work

Platform delivery

Build a shared foundation.

At Ford, I led Cloud Portal 2.0 delivery and built provisioning, access-control, and billing capabilities for the developer platform.

Explore the platform scope

Operational ownership

Lead beyond the launch.

At IBM, I led a cross-functional team of 10 engineers responsible for monitoring and alerting, and served as the subject-matter expert for L1 escalations.

Explore the operational work

03 / Career

A wider scope
with every role

From secure applications to global infrastructure, developer platforms, and ML serving. Technical leadership grounded in operating the systems I build.

  1. 2024 to presentWalmartStaff Software Engineer
  2. 2023 to 2024PayPalStaff Software Engineer
  3. 2019 to 2023FordSenior Software Engineer
  4. 2016 to 2019IBMSoftware Engineer / Team Lead
  5. 2015MicrosoftService Engineer Intern
  6. 2012 to 2014InfosysSenior Systems Engineer

MS in Computer Science, UT Dallas. MBA, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Explore the full experience and education

04 / Technical range

Built across the stack

From API contracts and data pipelines to cluster operations and model serving.

Languages & frameworks

API contracts, shared query processing, and developer-facing services.

  • Java
  • Python
  • TypeScript
  • JavaScript
  • Spring Boot
  • Node.js

Cloud & infrastructure

Model-serving platforms, provisioning, and access boundaries.

  • AWS
  • GCP
  • Azure
  • Kubernetes
  • Docker
  • OpenShift
  • Jenkins
  • Tekton

Data & analytics

Risk reporting, workflow migration, and high-volume ingestion.

  • Kafka
  • Databricks
  • DynamoDB
  • BigQuery
  • Elasticsearch
  • MongoDB
  • PostgreSQL

ML infra & observability

Inference routing, platform health, and operational visibility.

  • ML serving systems
  • Inference routing
  • Distributed systems
  • Grafana
  • Prometheus
  • OpenTelemetry
  • Datadog
  • CI/CD

05 / Independent work

Systems I build
outside work

Personal projects with source you can inspect. Different scales, familiar questions about correctness and control.

Personal project / Financial data

FundFlow

TypeScript / Next.js / Postgres / Plaid

A personal finance application for connected accounts, transaction review, and reconciliation.

Engineering focus: repeatable bank-data sync and explicit reconciliation. Provider transaction IDs drive upserts; statement reconciliation keeps cleared and outstanding movements separate.

Explore FundFlow source

Personal project / Developer tools

Flightdeck

TypeScript / Node.js / SQLite / Git

A local control plane for running and supervising coding-agent sessions across Git worktrees.

Engineering focus: separate workspaces and honest operational visibility. Worktrees separate file changes, the local dashboard requires a capability token, and unavailable usage measurements remain unknown.

Explore Flightdeck source

Next problem

Let’s build something dependable

Open to staff and principal engineering roles in platforms, infrastructure, and distributed systems. Reach out on LinkedIn to start a conversation.

Download resume (PDF)

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