Summary
Overview
Work History
Education
Skills
Certification
Hobbies
Timeline
Generic
Debajit Kataki

Debajit Kataki

Bangalore,KA

Summary

Results-driven technology, hands-on leader with 18+ years of experience in Cloud and Data Platform Engineering, specializing in cloud & data strategy, AI/ML, and enterprise-scale platform transformation. Expertise in driving architectural vision, executing roadmaps, and leading high-performing global teams to deliver scalable, resilient, and cost-optimized cloud and data solutions. Deep expertise in AWS, GCP, BigQuery, RDBMS, and NoSQL, with a focus on resiliency, compliance, and operational excellence. Passionate about enabling engineering excellence, enhancing operational efficiency, and shaping the future of cloud & data through strategic leadership.

Overview

23
23
years of professional experience
1
1
Certification

Work History

Senior Director – Data, Cloud & SRE

Palo Alto Networks Inc.
08.2024 - Current
  • Partnering with engineering leaders to design and operate high-scale systems on GKE in GCP.
  • Driving service resilience through Istio, Envoy, and Kubernetes service mesh architecture.
  • Enhancing operational excellence with observability and automated service recovery.
  • Optimizing AWS and GCP workloads to improve cost efficiency.
  • Initiated GameDays and a Chaos Engineering charter to strengthen system fault tolerance.
  • Implementing a data lake using Databricks, S3, and Apache Spark/ETL for large-scale analytics.
  • Designing RAG/LLM applications with LLaMA 3, LangChain, and FAISS to boost operational productivity.
  • Managing customer escalations to improve platform reliability and ensure rapid issue resolution.
  • Building and mentoring high-performance engineering teams, including campus hiring and branding.

Director – DevOps / SRE / Data Platform

Prisma Cloud, Palo Alto Networks Inc.
08.2021 - 07.2024
  • Built a technology-driven, innovation-centric DevOps engineering organization with a core focus on Build, Run, Operate, Integrate, and Secure, ensuring strong and stable infrastructure across AWS, GCP, and Azure.
  • Led Adoption, Growth, and Innovation initiatives for my areas of responsibility at Palo Alto Networks.
  • Cultivated a culture of Customer Centricity, Learning & Development, Growth Mindset, and Innovation.
  • Developed a consumer-first strategy with regular customer collaboration to gain, maintain, and retain customer trust.
  • Successfully built four expertise areas in India: Site Reliability/DevOps, Data Platform, Chaos Engineering, and Cloud FinOps, with teams spread across Bangalore, Tel Aviv, and Beijing.
  • Designed and built the current Kubernetes infrastructure with 8K+ EC2 nodes, hosting 20K+ container pods across 14 AWS global geo-locations.
  • Developed AI-driven incident response using Meta LLaMA 3 and RAG, reducing on-call effort by 35% through context-aware incident insights.
  • Designed highly scalable Kafka in AWS, later migrated to MSK, along with RDS (PostgreSQL sharding), MemSQL/SingleStore Multi-AZ, etc.
  • Reduced AWS consumption by USD 3-4 million per fiscal year through various cloud hosting disciplines.
  • Led security and compliance certifications, including SOC 2, FedRAMP, and MLPS 2.0.
  • Introduced an Embedded SRE model of scrum-based SRE engineers, ensuring SOPs and uniformity in global DevOps and SRE practices, along with CI/CD and GitOps in GitLab.
  • Ensured smooth production releases across development and 17 Kubernetes global production clusters, including US GOV environments.
  • Established observability practices with Prometheus, Grafana, Honeycomb, Runscope, Splunk, and other cloud-native tools.
  • Developed various productivity tools, including:
    Disposable Cloud Accounts – Reusing AWS cloud accounts for testing purposes.
    Castles – Spinning up and tearing down Dev and QA environments.
    Compass – Cloud cost optimization monitoring.
    PDAR – Provisioning production access to developers.
  • Implemented Change Management, Problem Management, and Incident Management frameworks via Blameless, FireHydrant, and JIRA.

Sr. Manager - Cloud and DevOps

Intuit India Pvt. Ltd.
01.2010 - 02.2019
  • Accelerated Intuit’s AWS cloud adoption and containerization journey with Docker and Kubernetes.
  • Led major eCommerce and SaaS initiatives for QuickBooks Online and TurboTax.
  • Delivered HA/DR solutions, migrating 50+ applications and saving $70M through data center consolidation.
  • Transformed an unstructured department into a high-performing global team.
  • Architected a patent-ready service restoration system (FSR) with self-healing capabilities, achieving RTO < 15 mins.
  • Owned CI/CD release automation and release engineering, overseeing nightly deployments for high-traffic web applications.
  • Led Incident Management, RCA analysis, and developed automation for incident remediation.
  • Built DevOps automation frameworks to enforce operational excellence and best practices.

Early Careers

Multiple Companies
01.2002 - 01.2010
  • Ibibo India Pvt. Ltd. (2008-2010): Led Operations, SME for Python-based crawler engine and user login systems.
  • Akamai Technologies (2006-2008): Specialized in CDN acceleration for high-profile clients like CNBC and Yahoo.
  • Cbay Systems (2005-2006): Scaled Linux-based data center environments.
  • Matrix Inc. (2003-2005): Consultant for Linux/Unix systems, including work with the Indian Air Force (EAC).
  • CDAC Noida (2002-2002): Internship in C++ game development and socket programming.

Education

Master of Science - Computer Science

Gauhati University
Guwahati
07-2002

Skills

    - Leadership & Strategic Vision

    - Cloud Architecture (AWS & GCP)

    - DevOps / SRE Transformation

    - Data Platform Engineering

    - Cloud Cost Optimization

    - Disaster Recovery (BCP/DR)

    - Incident & Problem Management

    - Cloud Security & Posture Management

    - AI/ML & LLM Integrations (LLAMA3, LangChain, FAISS)

    - Observability & Performance Optimization

Certification


- AWS and GCP Certified

- Innovation Day Champion

- 3 US Patents in service restoration & recovery

- Author of the book "Focused Minds"

Hobbies

  • Technology Enthusiast: Regularly read and write about emerging trends in DevOps, AI, and cloud computing.
  • Blogging: Occasionally share insights on technology, leadership, and innovation.
  • Traveling: Exploring new cultures and global technology ecosystems to gain diverse perspectives.

Timeline

Senior Director – Data, Cloud & SRE

Palo Alto Networks Inc.
08.2024 - Current

Director – DevOps / SRE / Data Platform

Prisma Cloud, Palo Alto Networks Inc.
08.2021 - 07.2024

Sr. Manager - Cloud and DevOps

Intuit India Pvt. Ltd.
01.2010 - 02.2019

Early Careers

Multiple Companies
01.2002 - 01.2010

Master of Science - Computer Science

Gauhati University

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Debajit Kataki