About Me (5-10 min read)

THE AWAKENING
I started as a software engineer, not a program manager — and that technical foundation shapes everything I do. In 1996, I was working in Informix's Advanced Technology Group under Chief Architect Martin Herbach. He challenged me to do the impossible: build a distributed protocol implementation — a Java client talking to a C++ server. At the time, making these systems communicate reliably was almost impossible. I remember the moment the calculation finally worked — but the most significant bit and least significant bit were interchanged. "Oh my god," I thought, "endianness!" That's how I learned distributed systems. I braved the unknown, sleeping at 4am, completing the prototype in record time. When others saw impossible technical barriers, I saw an engineering puzzle to solve. This became my pattern: bring relentless energy, stay optimistic about finding a path forward, and persevere until the system works. I imagine this is how the inventors of the telephone felt when they first heard "Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you" on the other line. This work earned me a slot in the Informix keynote at Chicago, where we demonstrated Application Partitioning.  

My technical roots run deep: I implemented backpropagation algorithms from scratch at undergrad to build fuzzy neural nets for medical diagnosis. At West Virginia University's Department of Computer Science, I built WISE at NASA's Software Research Lab — one of the earliest web-based software environments — deployed to Earth Observing System and Space Station projects. WVU taught me something that stayed with me forever: the frontier is not a place you wait to be invited to. You build your way there. But it was that  Informix moment that set my trajectory: I became obsessed with systems — not from  textbooks, but from building them from scratch.

BUILDING COMMUNITY & PRODUCTS

After Informix, I realized we had no Java books, no Stack Overflow, no documentation. So I founded the Mountain View Java Users Group — a forum bringing Silicon Valley's best technical minds together to learn collectively. A triumph of nerds, helping each other navigate a technology that was still being invented. It became the premier JUG in Silicon Valley.

At Oracle, I created BIPL (Bean Installation Programming Language) while integrating EJBs, a domain- specific language that fundamentally transformed how we built applications in the Application Server. I also led product marketing for Oracle's middleware portfolio, creating the Middleware Architecture Series — Oracle's most successful worldwide campaign (500,000+ readers, 200,000+ subscribers). At ESRI, when asked to create a static start page, I thought: "What if we could create GIS applications the way we compose email?" That question transformed the future of ArcGIS Server. I became the spec lead for a visual composition system that let users drag and drop web services to build GIS apps, it was mind blowing. These early years taught me: question the brief, build from first principles, and create the community when the playbook doesn't exist. 

GOOGLE - SCALE 

I never envisioned being a TPM. When I interviewed at Google in 2007, after 12+ grueling interviews, the Director of Ads said: "We were trying to find where you'll do best — TPM it is." I had the option to go back to core engineering, but I thought: "I'll experiment." I never looked back. At Google, I learned what execution at scale really meant. I became the first TPM in Google Storage Infrastructure, launching Census — a production observability system that later became OpenTelemetry, the industry standard. Then came the promotion to Staff TPM — in those days, considered one of Google's most difficult promotions. I started running horizontal programs spanning the entire company with no canonical patterns to follow. I launched us-east1, Google Cloud's first commercial region — bringing together capacity planning teams, hardware teams, real estate teams, and software teams into one coordinated program. This created the pattern for 22+ subsequent global regions. Then came Diskless — removing spinning disks from all production data centers. The birth of compute and storage separately. This was earth-shattering; every product area at Google was impacted. When I joined, the program was failing — timelines slipping, teams losing confidence. I brought infectious optimism: "We can do this, but we need to change our approach." I reorganized the execution model, re-energized the teams, and persevered through 18 months of setbacks until we launched our first diskless cell. The energy you bring to a failing program often matters more than the process you apply. I saved this program from a death spiral, upgrading millions of machines across the fleet in a multi-year, ~$500M initiative. 

BUBBLENET - THE LEAP

After 9 years at Google, I wanted to go back to building from scratch. I co-founded  Bubblenet with Dr.Easwar (technical co-founder/Orthopaedic Surgeon) and Dr. Savita (medical co-founder/internist).  In 6 weeks, I built an EMR solution, rolling up my sleeves and writing code again.  When COVID hit, we pivoted: Could we detect COVID from chest X-rays? I partnered with  Easwar on the ML architecture — building on his osteoporosis detection prototype — and  worked with Dr. Savita to curate radiologist-validated training data. I architected the  3-stage TensorFlow pipeline (fraud detection → normal/abnormal → COVID), led multi-site  validation across 10 countries, and achieved 91.5% sensitivity (vs. 96% radiologist  benchmark).  The hardest challenge: real-world variance across imaging equipment, protocols, patient  populations. Through iterative testing, I improved Spain dataset accuracy from 46% to 65%.  This led to $180K Google Cloud funding, published research (IJRI 2021, JAPI 2022), and  production deployment across 10+ countries.  Founding a startup taught me empathy for builders. When you choose between "ship fast"  vs. "build it right" with limited resources, you understand engineering tradeoffs  viscerally — not theoretically.

VMWARE - BUILDING ORGANIZATIONS

The VP at VMware asked me to create a FAANG-level TPM organization for Tanzu, VMware's Kubernetes portfolio. What followed was an accelerated trajectory: IC → Senior Manager → Director of the unified Tanzu team in less than 3 years. I scaled the TPM organization from 5 → 25 people across 5 countries, working with 800+ engineers to deliver Kubernetes control-plane capabilities across Tanzu Kubernetes Grid, Tanzu Mission Control, and Tanzu Advanced. We maintained 100% Kubernetes certification compliance and delivered FIPS-compliant builds that enabled multi-million-dollar federal deals. But my proudest achievement was founding "Bureaucracy Busters" with the Office of the CEO — a cross-company initiative resolving the top 20 execution blockers across 6 business groups, impacting 15,000+ employees. We didn't create more process — we removed the useless processes slowing everyone down. This set a new cultural norm: cross-company collaboration over siloed ownership.

AIRBNB - EXECUTION DEBUGGING

At Airbnb, I ran company-scale infrastructure programs with a focus on reliability. When I joined, we had 63 P0/P1 technical debt issues blocking product velocity. I launched a "Situation Room" — 19 days of intense execution. We eliminated 68% of the debt (63 → 20 issues) and cleared all P0 availability issues in my first month. I led the largest service-mesh migration in Airbnb's history — 198 production services from Smartstack to AirMesh — using my "Everest Climb Playbook" that I'd perfected during Google's Diskless program. This approach treats large-scale migrations like mountaineering: establish base camps, acclimatize, measure oxygen levels, know when to turn back. Result: 100% completion, millions in annual cost savings, zero major incidents. I also brought Airbnb's principal engineers together for a grassroots movement to reduce tribal knowledge and improve incident response. We mapped 8,000 spans and 400,000  edges of system complexity — exposing the architecture's true interconnections.  The "fall of the chair moments" when leadership saw the complexity sparked a  company-wide conversation about converting tribal knowledge into shared architectural  artifacts. This was similar to Bureaucracy Busters at VMware: a cooperative effort to make the company better through systematic problem-solving, not politics. 

PHILOSOPHY

I call myself a "Code Plumber" because I get my hands dirty. I don't just read architecture diagrams — I draw them, challenge them, and when necessary, rewrite them. While I now lead organizations of 800+ engineers, I still approach every program with this mindset. I trace the life of a query end-to-end — following data flow through the runtime to map the entire system and detect bottlenecks. I don't just manage roadmaps; I dive into technical architecture, connect the dots, and challenge underlying assumptions, run value streams, improve flow efficiency. This technical depth is why I can debug execution at scale. I know when engineers are stuck because they're missing a tool, clarity on success metrics, or cross-team alignment — versus stuck because they're solving a genuinely hard problem. 

My leadership philosophy comes from decades of building systems and organizations: 

• Impact over process I don't believe in "best practices." I believe in understanding the problem deeply enough to know which practices to apply — and which to throw away. At Airbnb, traditional program management would have said: "Create a prioritization framework, get stakeholder alignment, chip away over 6 months." Instead, I launched a Situation Room because I knew when to remove process (daily standups instead of weekly status reports) and when to add it (clear exit criteria, ruthless prioritization). 

• Builder mindset I've built AI products from scratch (Bubblenet), scaled teams (5 → 25 globally), and operated infrastructure at massive scale (Google 500+ eng, VMware 800+ eng, Airbnb Cloud). This hands-on experience informs how I lead programs. When an engineer tells me "this will take 6 months," I understand the difference between genuine complexity and missing tools. This isn't theoretical knowledge — it's scar tissue from debugging deadlocks bugs at 3am, running over 400+ retrospectives, writing distributed protocols from scratch, pivoting startups in 6 weeks, and saving $500M programs from death spirals. 

• Cross company execution debugging: When programs stall, I don't blame people — I debug the system. What's the blocker? Who has the authority to remove it? What's the minimal intervention that unblocks velocity? This is why I thrive in chaos. I see organizational complexity as a technical system to debug, not a political game to navigate. 

• Energy: People tell me I bring enormous energy to teams. I'm optimistic by nature — not naively so, but with the earned confidence that comes from solving impossible problems repeatedly. When I join a failing program, I don't see a disaster; I see a system that can be debugged. When teams are discouraged, I bring the belief that we can make it happen. I persevere until the end. At Google, I spent months turning around the Diskless program when others gave up. At Airbnb, I cleared 68% of technical debt in 19 days when conventional wisdom said it would take 6 months. At VMware, I built a 25-person global team during a $61B acquisition when everyone else was leaving. This energy isn't just enthusiasm — it's conviction built on decades of turning "impossible" into "shipped." I've debugged distributed protocols at 4am, saved $500M programs from death spirals, and pivoted startups in 6 weeks. When you've done the impossible enough times, optimism becomes pattern recognition.

WHO I AM

I'm a natural driver of execution and strategic thinker, oriented toward the overall benefit of the organization. My personality and Birkman assessment reflect a natural affinity for building organizations and executing high-level strategy. I thrive when translating a high-level vision into a structured, executable reality. I find inspiration in nature's systems and software architecture — whether witnessing the Great Migration in the Serengeti or navigating trails in Hawaii. I believe that "the important things in life are not things." I derive great joy from working with non-profits that support education for children and humanity, and I love to share knowledge through my writing to help others stay relevant in an ever-shifting technology landscape.

I'm currently on sabbatical (Sept 2025 - Present), reflecting on what I've learned and preparing for my next chapter. From building distributed protocols at Informix (1996) to launching Google Cloud's first region (2013) to co-founding an AI startup (2018-2020) to leading 800+ engineers at VMware (2020-2023) to debugging execution at Airbnb (2024-2025): 

The through-line has always been the same. 

I approach every problem — whether it's a hanging network call, a stalled program, or a broken organization — with the mindset of a systems engineer: 

1. Understand the system deeply
2. Identify the bottleneck
3. Apply the minimal intervention
4. Measure the result
5. Iterate 

TPM is not project management with technical vocabulary. It's applying deep systems thinking to organizational complexity. 

I've operated at startup scale (Bubblenet: 0 → 4 engineers), mid-scale (VMware: 800+ R&D), and massive scale (Google: 500+ engineers, Airbnb Cloud Infrastructure). I've built AI products, cloud infrastructure, Kubernetes platforms, organizations, and communities. 

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What's Next

What I want next: Work on AI infrastructure at frontier scale — the kind of challenges where you're building the systems that power the next generation of AI. 

This is why I'm targeting companies that are pushing the boundaries of what AI can do. 

The journey from NASA (1995) to frontier AI (2026) has been about increasingly complex systems — from software processes to distributed protocols to products to infrastructure to organizations to AI systems. The problems get more complex. The stakes get higher. The systems get bigger. But the approach stays the same: debug the system, remove the blocker, restore velocity. That's what I do. That's who I am.

Email: sudhakar at svitaworld dot com 

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/sudhakar-ramakrishnan