Staff Engineer · 15 yrs · Hyderabad, IN

I build the systems that can't lose a transaction.

Core banking, payments, and cloud storage platforms — architected, shipped, and run in production at Kotak Mahindra Bank, AWS Aurora, Tide, and Amazon. Available for architecture consulting, fractional staff-engineering, and hands-on builds.

Trusted in production at Kotak Mahindra Bank · AWS (Aurora Storage) · Tide · Amazon · OYO · Druva

idempotent event pipeline — the shape of most of my work events inalerts · statements queueSQS · at-least-once workersretry-safe state storeconditional write duplicatedropped, audited side effectsdebit · notify · PDF exactly-once effect seen before?
Services

Three ways to work together

Whether you need a second opinion on an architecture, a senior engineer embedded in your team, or a system built end to end — the common thread is banking-grade correctness without banking-grade slowness. Full details on the consulting page →

Architecture review

A focused, two-week deep dive into a system that worries you. Written assessment, prioritised risk list, a design you can implement.

Fit: fintech, banks, SaaS teams before a scale or compliance milestone

Fractional staff engineer

Part-time, ongoing. I own technical direction, run design reviews, and level up your engineers — without a full-time Staff hire.

Fit: Series A–C startups, product teams inside larger companies

Build it for you

Fixed-scope software delivery: payment flows, statement platforms, pricing engines, data pipelines on AWS.

Fit: founders and teams who need it shipped, documented, and handed over
Track record

The ledger

Numbers I'm accountable for, not numbers I sat next to.

OutcomeWhat it tookWhere
50M+ / monthPDF statements generated and delivered across email, SMS, push, post and links; moved off the Finacle monolith so it scales independently.Kotak Mahindra Bank
₹700 Cr / monthCharges recovery platform: configurable onboarding, alert-to-charge orchestration, pre-debit notices; SQS + DynamoDB conditional writes so retries never double-charge.Kotak Mahindra Bank
₹10 Cr / yearThird-party statement vendor replaced with an in-house platform; regulatory delivery gaps closed.Kotak Mahindra Bank
3h → 1.5hAverage incident resolution, after unifying on-call across US/EU/APAC with component ownership, SOPs and automated routing.AWS Aurora Storage
8× · −30%Virtual-thread pub/sub library (8× throughput) and an S3/SNS/SQS micro-batching framework (30% infra cost cut).AWS Aurora Storage
3.5 mo → 1 hSeller VAT-registration validation SLA, by re-engineering the questionnaire workflow and automating DLQ handling.Amazon
150M+ / dayCheck-in/check-out events on a re-architected communication platform and IAM.OYO
How I work

Rigour first, then speed

The same discipline that keeps a bank's ledger correct is what lets a small team ship fast without fear.

Understand the domain

DDD workshops with the people who own the process, not just the code. The model comes before the microservices.

Design for failure

Every path assumes retries, restarts and duplicates. Idempotency and auditability are requirements, not add-ons.

Ship in slices

Thin vertical slices to production early. Configuration-led onboarding so the second product is cheap.

Leave it owned

Runbooks, SOPs, dashboards, and a team that understands the system. AI accelerates the drafting; engineers verify.

Experience

Fifteen years, seven systems that mattered

Banking, cloud storage, payments, hospitality, e-commerce, disaster recovery, mobility.

NOV 2024 — PRESENT

Staff Software Engineer, Core Banking · Kotak Mahindra Bank

Lead two teams across architecture, delivery and mentoring. Own the statement delivery platform (50M+/month) and the charges recovery platform (~₹700 Cr/month). Introduced AI-assisted design and review workflows with human verification for security and compliance.

JAN 2022 — OCT 2024

Senior SDE III, Aurora Storage · Amazon Web Services

Enabled Aurora Storage for Aurora Global Database and Neptune Global Database. Cluster autoscaling control plane, virtual-thread pub/sub (8×), micro-batching framework (−30% cost), unified follow-the-sun on-call.

MAR 2020 — DEC 2021

Lead SDE, Payments · Tide

Led two teams (10 engineers). Architected the payment platform for multi-market expansion, launched Tide India, designed the in-house ledger.

JUL 2019 — MAR 2020

Senior Software Developer, Core Platform · OYO

IAM re-architecture and communication-platform scaling for 150M+ daily check-in/checkout events on Kafka-based microservices.

NOV 2016 — JUL 2019

SDE II, VISA & Hireon · Amazon

Cut seller VAT validation from 3.5 months to 1 hour. Built the multi-tenant, multi-language QuizStoreService for Hireon.

JAN 2015 — NOV 2016

Software Developer, Phoenix DR · Druva

VMware disaster-recovery restore into customer AWS VPC/VMC with RTO in minutes, for 10,000+ servers of ~1 TB each.

JUN 2012 — DEC 2014

iOS Developer · Tata Consultancy Services

Digital Campaign Tracker for Sony Entertainment; multi-master offline sync with last-write-wins reconciliation.

Writing

Notes from production

Short, specific pieces on distributed systems and the staff-engineer path. Read all posts →

Reading list

Books I hand to engineers

The shelf I actually recommend to people I mentor. See all 15 books, plus 10 foundational papers →

foundations

Clean Code

Robert C. Martin

Still the fastest way to give a team a shared vocabulary for "this is hard to read".

See details →
foundations

The Pragmatic Programmer

Hunt & Thomas

Habits that outlast any specific stack — the 20th-anniversary edition holds up.

See details →
foundations

A Philosophy of Software Design

John Ousterhout

The clearest short book on what "complexity" actually costs and where it hides.

See details →
Contact

Tell me what keeps you up at night.

Reply within two working days. If it isn't a fit, I'll say so and point you somewhere better.

Email me Full enquiry form

Email
[email protected]
LinkedIn
linkedin.com/in/indresh-gahoi
GitHub
github.com/indreshgahoi
Based in
Hyderabad, India · works with teams in IST, GMT and US hours