Open to opportunities

Vijaya Krishna Pondala

@vijayakrishnapondala

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Principal/Lead Platform Engineer specializing in cloud-native platforms, DevOps, and scalable microservices.

Australia

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What I'm looking for

I seek a senior platform or principal engineering role building cloud-native, secure, developer-friendly platforms with strong emphasis on automation, observability, and mentorship.

I am a Principal Software Engineer and Platform Engineer with 2–3 years in my current principal role and two decades of hands-on experience across cloud-native platforms, microservices and enterprise systems. I design, build and operate secure, resilient control planes and developer-facing delivery platforms using Golang, Java, Kubernetes and GitOps.

At Optus I built GitOps-based cloud control planes, introduced Kubernetes Operators and championed modern engineering practices through study groups and an internal tech radar; at Macquarie I led CI/CD enablement for 800 developers, implemented Pipeline-as-Code, and integrated DevSecOps tooling to raise quality and security.

I mentor engineers, hire and raise bar for leadership, and consistently drive automation, observability and platform uplift to reduce toil and improve developer velocity across large banking and enterprise environments.

Experience

Work history, roles, and key accomplishments

Current

Principal Engineer

Current

Optus

Jan 2023 - Present (3 years)

Built GitOps-based cloud control planes on Kubernetes and introduced Kubernetes Operators and distroless images to improve security and reliability; mentored engineers and published the Optus Engineering Tech Radar to uplift engineering culture.

Golang Kubernetes GitOps Kyverno Crossplane Docker CI CD Observability

Principal Engineer

Macquarie Bank

Aug 2017 - Jan 2023 (5 years 5 months)

Led architecture and delivery of a bank-grade CI/CD enablement platform serving ~800 developers and designed an event-driven software delivery platform that improved developer productivity and security posture.

Java Kotlin Spring Boot Bitbucket Pipelines CI CD DevSecOps Kubernetes

Software Engineer

Tyro Payments

Jan 2017 - Aug 2017 (7 months)

Contributed to microservices powering the EFTPOS platform, improving functionality through pairing sessions and tech huddles using Java, Spring Boot and RabbitMQ.

Java Spring Boot Kotlin RabbitMQ JPA Selenium Microservices CI CD

Consultant

Macquarie Bank

Jan 2015 - Dec 2016 (1 year 11 months)

Delivered enhancements to the Macquarie Wealth platform including account maintenance and transaction modules, performance improvements, and automated build/deploy processes.

Java Spring Hibernate REST Oracle Bamboo UDeploy Junit

Consultant

Department of Planning & Environment

Jun 2014 - Jan 2015 (7 months)

Designed and deployed an online data reporting platform for OpenData, improving performance 10x and enhancing accessibility to WCAG 2.0 standards.

Java Spring Oracle JavaScript HighCharts Performance Tuning Accessibility

Development Lead

D. E. Shaw India

Jan 2007 - Mar 2014 (7 years 2 months)

Led design and development of monitoring, reporting and back-office systems, improving operational efficiency up to 5x and saving ~25 person-days/month through metrics automation.

Java Python MySQL ETL Monitoring Java EE Web Services Automation Metrics

Senior Software Developer

D. E. Shaw India

Jul 2004 - Dec 2006 (2 years 5 months)

Designed workflow and time-tracking systems handling 500+ daily workflows and saved ~100 person-days/year by automating timesheet and reporting processes.

Java EE JBoss Drools JavaScript Workflow Automation Performance Optimization