Rahul Arora

Led the design and implementation of cloud-native microservices pipelines and platform modernization efforts for Azure AI Experimentation, significantly enhancing deployment reliability and efficiency.

• Designed and implemented cloud-native microservices pipelines in C# using ARM templates, Azure Functions, and YAML-based CI/CD, replacing legacy 'Azure classic' pipelines and reducing deployment failures by ~40%.
• Led platform modernization efforts, eliminating hard-coded versions, improving build isolation, and enforcing deployment compliance with internal Azure cloud security standards.
• Built a multi-service PR validation test harness in C# for Spark scriptgen engine, migrating legacy workflows to Azure cloud, cutting manual validation by 75% and enabling self-service integration testing across four dependent microservices.
• Managed mission-critical production systems, including bi-monthly on-call rotations for big-data scorecard pipelines, resolving high-cardinality failures, optimizing distributed compute jobs, and maintaining 99.8% uptime.
• Mentored 3+ senior engineers through tech-share sessions, accelerating delivery and knowledge transfer across the team.
• Drove strategic decision-making by leading data-driven trade-off discussions with senior leadership and PMs, aligning roadmap with scalable system design, performance reliability, and cost optimization.

Architected and rolled out the Windows Search Desktop App to 1.4 billion users, leading a global engineering team and driving significant improvements in user experience and search relevance.

• Architected and rolled out the Windows Search Desktop App to 1.4 billion users, defining modular services, driving cross-org roadmaps, and accelerating feature delivery by 30%.
• Scaled and led a global team of 10 engineers, including managing a 6-member team in Redmond and building a 4-member team in India, while establishing Agile processes to optimize workflows for faster delivery.
• Delivered new UX features (Search Highlights, Search Home, taskbar integration), driving a 15% uptick in Net Promoter Score and reducing help-desk tickets by 18%.
• Led AI-driven semantic search features for documents and images across Windows Search, Indexing Service, and File Explorer, boosting query relevance by 20% and cutting zero-result queries by 25%.
• Optimized the file relevancy engine for Windows Start & Search by redesigning ranking algorithms, building a 25K-document offline benchmark, reducing evaluation cycles from 6 weeks to 2 days, and increasing CTR by 30%.

Managed engineering teams to deliver major releases for OCI Big Data and CloudSQL UI, enhancing self-service adoption and driving customer engagement.

• Delivered 3 major and 2 point releases on schedule for OCI Big Data and CloudSQL UI, maintaining 100% on-time delivery under aggressive roadmaps.
• Led distributed teams across California and Mexico, introducing Scrum cadence that boosted sprint throughput by 20% and cut cycle time by 15%.
• Built React-based SQL editor and Hadoop cluster provisioning UI, increasing self-service adoption by 15%.
• Presented Oracle's cloud products at various big data conferences, boosting customer engagement and product adoption through effective demonstrations.

Architected core REST APIs and SDKs for OCI Big Data, designed PaaS-scale cloud services, and optimized Big Data orchestration frameworks to improve efficiency and reduce rollout time.

• Architected core REST APIs and SDKs (Python, Java & Ruby) for OCI Big Data, reducing client integration errors by 15% and growing SDK usage by 10%.
• Designed PaaS-scale cloud service, building end-to-end CI/CD with Jenkins & TeamCity, automating deployments and reducing rollout time by 40%.
• Optimized Big Data orchestration frameworks and cloud control planes in Python and Java, improving code efficiency by 20% and simplifying maintenance by 30%.
• Collaborated cross-functionally with SRE, DevOps, and product teams to meet SLAs for availability and performance on high-volume distributed systems.

Co-founded a deal-aggregation platform, driving significant user traffic and establishing key partnerships while engineering scalable data-ingest systems.

• Built a deal-aggregation platform serving 40+ merchants, driving 50K monthly visits through custom Django crawlers and PostgreSQL pipelines.
• Forged 30+ publisher partnerships, creating analytics dashboards to track performance and optimize deal placement.
• Engineered scalable crawlers in Python, boosting data-ingest efficiency and supporting 50+ site integrations.

Launched a self-publishing startup, securing authors and managing end-to-end production workflows, achieving high client satisfaction and sustained user growth.

• Launched a self-publishing startup, signing 20+ authors and managing end-to-end production workflows in Django and jQuery.
• Drove product-market fit by iterating on author feedback, achieving a 70% satisfaction rate and securing repeat business from 25% of clients.
• Oversaw platform growth, coordinating design and development to sustain 6% month-over-month user growth.