About Me
Hi, my name’s Rohit and I like to work with technology and people. I am pretty good at Software Engineering, Technical Strategy, Finding the right Balance and running Happy Engineering Teams. I’ve been at this for more than 20 years now, and still learn something new everyday.
Experience
Reality Labs
Cutting edge simulation and rendering software.
Video
Solving interesting product problems around the search and discovery of videos on Facebook.
Item Setup and Maintenance
Responsible for a 50+ member team that enables inserts and updates to Walmart’s catalog and serves some types of partner actionable information. We process 500M+ messages, synchronous and asynchronous, everyday from partners, buyers and aggregators adjusting product data, price, inventory and logistics info, for both stores and e-commerce, and serve order management information, all through a variety of interfaces and web tools, internal and external.
Web Applications for Merchants and Partners
Responsible for a 40+ member team that runs ~10 web applications that are used by B2B partners and internal buyers to bring the right assortment to walmart.com. Functions include Item Setup and Maintenance, Partner Onboarding, Analytics, Inventory Management, Workflows, Trust and Safety, etc. Built team up from 6 developers forming a Javascript competency within a predominantly Java org. Led the migration of tech stack to modern ReactJS-nodeJS. Established cadence, methodology for Web Application Engineering and optimized multiple business functions by providing the right tools.
Home Pages, Promotions, Curations, Universal Header/Footer
Started with Product Management as part of a Leadership Program, and grew into Engineering manager responsibilities for a Javascript team that focused on mWeb omnichannel applications initially, and took on the main landing Page and other top of funnel experiences later. Modernized CMS approach to allow quicker initial loads through SPAs. Began with 2 and grew team to 15 strong.
Pricing Analytics Engine
Technical Lead for Fortune 100 implementations of proprietory Pricing Software. Planned and managed workflow analysis, requirements gathering, developing with dispersed teams, integrations, and production. Responsible for day to day management of 3-4 developers on implementation team.
Various
Java Developer
Seb 2003 - Feb 2010
Sabre Inc, CenturyLink, Vendavo Inc, Cognizant Technologies
J2EE development of various business applications. Promoted quickly within early organizations opening doors to being a consultant Engineer on special projects. Wrote code through the rise and fall of EJBs, Eclipse’s early days as a Platform, MVC architectures going through versions of Apache Struts, Oracle and MySQL wrestling, ORMs, expensive J2EE Application server liceses, having to buy hardware and set it up, and Javascript/JSON/REST beginning to resemble their current day forms.
Education
Stanford University
Masters in Management Science and Engineering
2011 - 2012
The Department of Management Science and Engineering at Stanford aims to interface a synergy between engineering, business, and public policy.
I tailored my focus areas around Strategic Management of Technology Innovation, Decision Analysis, Stochastic Decision Modelling, Finance, Entrepreneurial Marketing, Organizational Behaviour, Simulation of Systems, Accounting, Operations Management, and Data Visualization.
Visvesvaraya Technological University
Bachelors in Engineering
1999 - 2003
The Department of Mechanical Engineering, MS Ramaiah Institute of Technology.
Broad Engineering degree with a specialization on the usage of Computers in Mechanical Design and Analysis.
Projects
AR @Meta
Augmented Reality Engine
Evolving a massively cross platform simulation and graphics engine used across the company and present on billions on devices globally.
Videos @Facebook
Search and Discovery
Building video product experiences at Facebook scale. Catalyzing the coming together of powerful infrastructure, a growing and challenging domain, and endless talent and data for building community across the world.
Partner APIs @Walmart
Walmart's API ecosystem for Partners
Inherited a team and a five year old codebase that powers Walmart’s APIs used by partners and internal web applications (traffic: >500MM calls daily). Changes underway to improve observability, decompose monolithic components, modernize architecture, and product-ize a platform. It’s very interesting for me to be able to instill passion and structure into such a relook, and foster innovation.
Item Setup UI tools @Walmart
Fast Item Setup and targeted maintenance is nimbleness
Greatly improved setup of items across categories both single and in bulk by obsessively focussing on platform improvements for usability, over two years. As a result, newer tools have much better usage and retention with lower item setup times and higher coverage of target items. Alongside, we’ve developed a library of React components and microservices backed functional components related to item setup that have made addressing narrower use cases a quick turnaround.
Flight Deck @Walmart
Landing experience for mini CEOs of Walmart Categories
Analytics, Notifications, Intelligence to guide optimal focus and time investment from Category Managers into areas needing attention. I inherited this application and a remote team, and one year later we’ve made significant progress on every front, and stopped an attrition problem. I have overcome managing with distance, and built a great relationship with a team I didn’t hire.
Seller Center @Walmart
seller.walmart.comMarketplace Portal for Walmart.com Sellers
I took on a just-seeded team and a new B2B application and grew it to a userbase of 20000 sellers, supporting Walmart’s rapid Marketplace growth with quick additions of all required features. Today the application serves 100% of our 3rd party partners on every main business function and the application has scaled through three holiday seasons without incident. Sellers use this application every day to manage their catalog, prices, inventory levels, orders and returns. It is a workhorse.
Top of Funnel Experiences @Sears, @Kmart
sears.comHigh traffic landing pages for sears.com and kmart.com
I learned a lot about leading under pressure, prioritizing correctly, and looking for data to back up decisions at this job. We modernized the content management approach by incorporating AngularJS applications into the CMS system. With a more equipped front-end team, we built several curation and promotion experiences in much shorter time and with better initial loads.
In Vehicle Pickup @Sears
youtu.be/P0_mW3PxXm0Trailblazer on Omnichannel
Sears was one of the first retailers to see the value in Omnichannel retail capabilities. This project really taught me about the complexities of rolling something out to a nationwide chain, and making things simple for store associates.
mWeb applications for Adam Levine Levine @KMart
wi.st/2TXtvD3Innovative augmented reality shopping experience that appeals to a younger, modern fan.
This was an innovation foray for me, leading the team into two hot new areas, AR and mobile web. The initial appeal of the marketing around this new tech meant that these items sold out like hotcakes in an unprecedented manner at Kmart.
A Little More About Me
I spend most of my free time with my two curious daughters wondering what the best way is to make the most of their childhood, and still prepare them for life. With what’s remaining I curl up with some reading and a cup of tea. I guess our family has lived in Northern California long enough to make us soft.