RAJESH A PILLAI
Bangalore
Summary
Dynamic leader with a proven track record at Laerdal Medical, driving AI strategy and enhancing engineering efficiency. Expert in product lifecycle management and global stakeholder engagement, I excel in fostering innovation and mentoring teams to achieve high-impact results. Committed to optimizing platform-driven architecture and delivering transformative healthcare solutions.
Overview
25
25
years of professional experience
2
2
Certifications
Work History
Director – Learning Management Platforms
Laerdal Medical
Copenhagen
04.2025 - Current
- Spearheaded product and technology strategy for healthcare training ecosystem in international markets.
- Collaborated with global engineering and product teams to enhance service offerings.
- Defined execution strategy for AI adoption, ensuring reliability and operational uptime.
- Led cross-functional teams to drive product development and innovation initiatives.
Director – Platforms & Product Management
Laerdal Bangalore
Bangalore
05.2020 - 03.2025
- Directed comprehensive healthcare training ecosystem lifecycle, encompassing design, architecture, and autonomous engineering.
- Aligned stakeholders with partners including Laerdal, American Heart Association, and RQI Partners.
- Mentored product engineers and architects to improve engineering maturity within autonomous teams.
- Established autonomous engineering teams in Bangalore, promoting innovation and accountability in execution.
- Utilized AI and foundational principles of Product Operating Model to enhance engineering efficiency.
Head – Infrastructure Development
Laerdal Bangalore
Bangalore
08.2017 - 05.2020
- Established engineering teams in Bangalore, fostering innovation and accountability in execution.
- Developed comprehensive product development process and toolchain for timely delivery of high-impact priorities.
- Architected scalable infrastructure services, ensuring compliance with data privacy regulations for three global partners.
- Integrated DevOps, SRE, QA, UX, and analytics into delivery teams to improve collaboration.
AVP – Platform Development
Impelsys
Bengaluru
10.2015 - 07.2017
- Owned SOA and microservices platform capabilities for large enterprise publishing solutions.
- Established continuous integration best practices to enhance execution efficiency.
- Analyzed market trends to guide product development and service offerings.
Sr. Tech Manager, Platform Implementation
Impelsys
Bengaluru
04.2011 - 09.2015
- Established platform capabilities for diverse large-scale publishing solutions in US and Europe.
- Led cross-functional teams in developing innovative technical solutions to meet client needs.
Technical Manager
Impelsys
Bengaluru
09.2006 - 03.2011
- Led full-cycle architecture and development of Open Source and XML-driven content platforms.
- Oversaw eBook and journal fulfillment workflows for diverse publishing applications.
- Oversaw software development processes and ensured quality standards.
- Designed database schemas to ensure data integrity and scalability.
Tech Lead – Web Application Development
Ekomate Systems
01.2006 - 09.2006
- Directed development of software solutions for client projects and internal requirements.
- Utilized PHP, Java, MySQL, REST, and XML to deliver high-quality systems.
Team Lead
Tao Information Technology
06.2000 - 01.2006
- Conducted requirement analysis to design effective solutions for project needs.
- Provided technical leadership that enhanced overall team performance.
- Managed releases and deployments, ensuring timely delivery of software products.
- Utilized tech stack including Linux, PERL, PHP, and MySQL to optimize development processes.
Senior Software Engineer
Marlabs Inc
11.2003 - 12.2004
- Served as senior Java developer for Marlab's healthcare solution.
- Collaborated with contributor on PHP module to enhance integration.
- Utilized Java, Struts, JSP, PHP, and MySQL for project development.
Education
MBA - Product Leadership
Institute of Product Leadership
Bangalore, India12-2023
Skills
- Engineering leadership and strategy
- Engineering efficiency optimization
- Digital transformation and AI Strategy
- Platform-driven architecture optimization
- Solution architecture, DevEx, SRE
- Product leadership and strategy
- Product ideation and validation
- Roadmap prioritization
- Product rollout and onboarding
- Product lifecycle management
- Global Cross-functional team leadership
- Product operating model and autonomous team topology
- Development Process Optimization & Scaled Agile
- Hiring and mentoring
- Global Stakeholder management
Accomplishments
• Spearheaded the Engineering & Product teams at Laerdal Medical’s Bangalore division, to build a state-of-the-art Healthcare Training infrastructure that supports 14 million Healthcare workers across the globe.
• Built & Scaled the Engineering team from ground up, fostering a culture of innovation, ownership, and outcome-driven execution.
• Led the Engineering Efficiency Optimization by integrating AI into developer workflows, optimizing processes, resulting in quantifiable improvements.
• Established the end-to-end product development process and tool chain, consistently delivering high-impact business priorities under aggressive timelines.
• Owned a $15M+ product and engineering portfolio; drove profitability improvements through strategic engineering efficiencies and infrastructure optimization.
• Enabled global expansion to 12 M+ users by re-architecting and deploying scalable and secure cloud-based infrastructure.
• Refactored a large-scale monolithic system into a distributed microservices architecture, enabling horizontal scalability, faster deployments, and reduced system complexity.
• Established and led 250+ FTEs across autonomous, cross-functional engineering teams, driving alignment, innovation, and delivery at scale.
• Built & Scaled the Engineering team from ground up, fostering a culture of innovation, ownership, and outcome-driven execution.
• Led the Engineering Efficiency Optimization by integrating AI into developer workflows, optimizing processes, resulting in quantifiable improvements.
• Established the end-to-end product development process and tool chain, consistently delivering high-impact business priorities under aggressive timelines.
• Owned a $15M+ product and engineering portfolio; drove profitability improvements through strategic engineering efficiencies and infrastructure optimization.
• Enabled global expansion to 12 M+ users by re-architecting and deploying scalable and secure cloud-based infrastructure.
• Refactored a large-scale monolithic system into a distributed microservices architecture, enabling horizontal scalability, faster deployments, and reduced system complexity.
• Established and led 250+ FTEs across autonomous, cross-functional engineering teams, driving alignment, innovation, and delivery at scale.
Engineering Efficiency Optimization
- Driven the rollout of GitHub Copilot across 10+ agile teams to assist with code completion, unit test generation, and refactoring suggestions
- Integrated ChatGPT into IDE workflows via custom VS Code extensions, reducing time spent on boilerplate and utility code by over 30%
- Tracked impact through Jira velocity metrics and engineering dashboards (using LinearBand GitPrime), showing a 40% improvement in story point throughput over two quarters
- Adopted CodeGuru Reviewer (AWS) for PRs, enabling AI-driven feedback on performance and maintainability, cutting review time by approximately 35%
- Led the integration of generative AI (OpenAI, Anthropic Claude) into e-learning platforms to deliver real-time, adaptive tutoring experiences that adjusted content difficulty and feedback based on learner performance and engagement signals
Certification
- SAFe Agile Product Owner/Manager
- Machine Learning Fundamentals, and Data Analytics
- Digital Marketing, and Social Media Marketing
Languages
- English
- Danish
- Malayalam
- Kannada
- Tamil
- Hindi
Languages
English
Advanced (C1)
C1
Hindi
Proficient (C2)
C2
Danish
Beginner
A1
Malayalam
Native
Native
Kannada
Proficient (C2)
C2
Tamil
Proficient (C2)
C2
Timeline
Director – Learning Management Platforms
Laerdal Medical
04.2025 - Current
Director – Platforms & Product Management
Laerdal Bangalore
05.2020 - 03.2025
Head – Infrastructure Development
Laerdal Bangalore
08.2017 - 05.2020
AVP – Platform Development
Impelsys
10.2015 - 07.2017
Sr. Tech Manager, Platform Implementation
Impelsys
04.2011 - 09.2015
Technical Manager
Impelsys
09.2006 - 03.2011
Tech Lead – Web Application Development
Ekomate Systems
01.2006 - 09.2006
Senior Software Engineer
Marlabs Inc
11.2003 - 12.2004
Team Lead
Tao Information Technology
06.2000 - 01.2006
MBA - Product Leadership
Institute of Product Leadership