Harikishan Mulagada
Cupertino,CA
Summary
Results-driven Principal/Senior Staff Support Engineer with 10 years of experience in technical support, automation, and observability. Adept at mentoring engineers, creating technical documentation, and enhancing system reliability. Expertise in Kubernetes, AWS, APM, OpenTelemetry, and automation using Python. Passionate about improving operational efficiency through automation, knowledge sharing, and collaborating with engineering and product teams for product betterment. Extensive experience driving innovation, enhancing supportability, and developing scalable solutions for complex distributed systems. Proven ability to develop support automation tooling, provide migration support, and improve product reliability through engineering collaboration. Tech-savvy innovator with hands-on experience in emerging technologies and passion for continuous improvement. Skilled in identifying opportunities for technological enhancements and implementing effective solutions. Adept at leveraging new tools and methods to solve problems and enhance productivity. Excels in adapting to fast-paced environments and driving technological advancements.
Overview
9
9
years of professional experience
1
1
Certification
Work History
Principal Engineer
Riverbed Technology Inc
01.2021 - Current
- Designed and developed Automation for for deep dive log analysis leading to 25-30% decrease in case resolution times
- Lead and assisted in multi million dollar projects at customer site
- Developed automation project using Python and RStudio for advanced analytics and Health Checks saving 100% time for ENG
- Implemented observability solutions using OpenTelemetry and APM tools to enhance system reliability and saving 10-20% of debugging time
- Conducted supportability testing for engineering to ensure smoother deployments and better troubleshooting workflows.
- Led the training and mentorship program for new engineers, including TOI sessions, technical deep dives, and brown bag meetings.
Designed and maintained detailed technical runbooks, wikis, and KB articles, improving resolution efficiency.
Senior Staff Engineer
Riverbed Technology Inc
01.2020 - 01.2021
- Developed Python automation scripts to streamline incident handling, system monitoring, and log analysis.
- Led root cause analysis (RCA) and troubleshooting efforts, collaborating with development and SRE teams.
- Implemented observability solutions using Open Telemetry and APM tools to enhance system reliability.
- Worked extensively with Kubernetes and AWS services (EKS,ECS, S3, EC2) for scaling and monitoring production environments
Staff Engineer
Riverbed Technology Inc
10.2016 - 01.2020
- Led resolution of the most complex and high-impact customer issues across Java and .NET distributed applications, performing advanced diagnostics including JVM/.NET core dump analysis, heap analysis, deadlock detection, GC tuning, and multi-tier dependency tracing—owning issues escalated beyond L1/L2/L3 capabilities.
- Partnered closely with Engineering on defect reproduction, root-cause analysis, regression testing, and long-term supportability improvements; influenced product roadmap decisions by identifying recurring failures, competitive gaps, and architectural friction points surfaced from customer escalations.
- Developed robust automation tooling in Python and SQL to perform large-scale log ingestion, anomaly detection, configuration validation, and signature-based bug correlation—reducing manual triage effort by over 70% and significantly increasing SLA compliance and CSAT.
Education
Master of Science - Computer Engineering
Illinois Institute of Technology
Chicago, IL02-2008
Skills
- Linux (Ubuntu, RHEL, CentOS), Windows
- Application Performance Management
- Network Performance Management
- Docker, Kubernetes
- SaaS Platforms - AWS, Azure and GCP
- DBMS
- Python
- Open Telemetry, Prometheus, Grafana
- Git, Bitbucket
Accomplishments
- Log Analysis Automation for advanced troubleshooting leading MTTR for support case to improve by 30%
- Python Automation tools for healthchecks removing ENG involvement completely and providing ability for engineers to complete the checks
- Have lead and assisted Multi million dollar deals for APM
Certification
AWS Certified Solution Architect - Associate
AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
Timeline
Principal Engineer
Riverbed Technology Inc
01.2021 - Current
Senior Staff Engineer
Riverbed Technology Inc
01.2020 - 01.2021
Staff Engineer
Riverbed Technology Inc
10.2016 - 01.2020
Master of Science - Computer Engineering
Illinois Institute of Technology