# Baskaran Janarthanam

> Lead Software Architect & Staff Software Engineer @ Netflix. Currently defining & building the next generation Growth Platform

Location: San Francisco Bay Area, United States
Profile: https://flows.cv/baskaran

As an experienced Leader, Software Architect, and Hands-on Engineer with over 20 years of expertise, I have built a few SaaS platforms, business, and consumer applications. Currently, I am defining and building various platforms, libraries, and services required for Netflix's Growth through Organic and Partner Channels. Prior to joining Netflix, I played a pivotal role in migrating legacy SaaS software towards cloud-native micro-services at SuccessFactors CTO's team as a lead architect.

Here are some key highlights:

- Skilled and passionate in converting abstract ideas to working software products 0-1.
- Quick at comprehending deep, complex software problems and coming up with solutions.
- Expert at modeling new domains and redrawing existing domain boundaries, defining the roadmap, and executing to evolve systems and organizations for quick iterations.
- Hypothesized problems, devised strategies to define the problem & ideated on solutions (leveraging design thinking), built cross-organizational influence, formed working groups across teams, led definitions, and implemented Northstar architecture of products.
- Provide technology and execution leadership to teams & management
- Experience with fast-paced agile development with weekly delivery and continuous integration.
- Have a broad perspective of software beyond primary technology expertise with exposure to go-to-market, product sales cycles, go-live, custom development, and software implementation.
- In-depth knowledge of Distributed and Observable Systems 
- Have a comprehensive understanding and in-depth expertise in building Cloud Platforms and Cloud - - - SaaS Applications [Multi-tenancy/Extensibility/Integration/Business document Frameworks/Event-based architectures/etc]
- Extensively worked on Java & related frameworks and polyglot languages Groovy, Python, Scala, Go, Rust, etc.

I see myself as a true multiplier in multiple facets, having built systems that increased developer productivity by a factor of ~3X, established patterns to reduce decision fatigue, and mentored leaders, architects, and engineers. I provided the overall architecture blueprint and technical direction for broad organizations.

Overall, I'm passionate about end-to-end product development, from problem definition to ideation to quick prototypes to validation to beta and successful product releases, support, building SaaS platforms, dealing with complex systems, changing engines in flight, and influence without authority.

Apart from my technical expertise, I'm also an angel investor and advisor in a few startups.

## Work Experience
### Staff Software Engineer @ Netflix
Jan 2018 – Present | Los Gatos, California, United States
Growth Platform
- Lead architect & Tech Lead responsible for the Growth Experiences technology stack, including mid-tier and front-end systems.
- Established and drove the North Star architecture for the Growth Platform to standardize building experiences for Growth, empowering teams to execute diverse A/B experiments efficiently.
- Led the design and implementation of the core platform across all mid-tier services, addressing key cross-cutting concerns (error handling, observability, caching) through AOP, foundational building blocks, and reuse to increase development velocity by ~6X. Additionally, developed a configurable state machine for multi-step user journeys
- Cultivated key relationships across teams, guiding architectural and strategic decisions. Collaborated extensively to redefine team and system boundaries, driving cohesive technological progress across the Growth Org.
- Championed engineering excellence by mentoring teams and leading by example. Facilitated brainstorming sessions that enhanced problem-solving skills and fostered a culture of continuous learning, improving both individual career growth and overall team performance.

Partner Payments Engineering (PPE)
- Led the complete re-engineering of the Partner Payments Platform, taking full ownership and collaborating with broad teams to establish domain boundaries and models for Partner Payments Systems and Flows.
- Developed the architectural blueprint and built the base PPE Common Platform, now supporting all PPE services. This platform has tripled developer velocity, enhanced service observability, and reduced decision fatigue.
- Developed various PPE services and actively guided and mentored engineers throughout the project lifecycle, enhancing team skills and fostering a collaborative environment.
- Transformed the on-call dynamics from reactive firefighting to proactive consultation, stabilizing the system and implementing self-service tools that address broader operational questions.

### Lead Architect – Cloud Architecture Team - CTO Office @ SAP SuccessFactors
Jan 2016 – Jan 2018 | San Francisco Bay Area
Overall lead for transitioning SuccessFactors to microservices based architecture
- Defined, built and deployed the first micro-service in 14 data centers leveraging existing tools/infrastructure, while working with operations to modernize the infrastructure and tools & pilot dev-ops.
- Defined the architecture guidelines, built various templates and hand-hold teams to develop and deliver the initial set of micro-services in addition to reusable artifacts and libraries for teams to use
- Defined and working to reduce the memory footprint of Monolith Java/Spring Boot/Spring Cloud/JWT/Jenkins2/APIGEE/oData/Docker/Git/Gradle

### Lead Architect - Platform Engineering (API & External Events) @ SAP SuccessFactors
Jan 2014 – Jan 2016 | San Francisco Bay Area
Lead architect & engineer responsible for a wide array of Platform engineering topics
- Transitioned SuccessFactors towards an Event-based architecture, Implemented Events Framework & Intelligent Services (IFTTT for HR)
- Responsible for the API Architecture, API Framework, API Gateway, Caching, OData, API provider Codegen Tool, Elevated User Privileges, Remoting, JWT

### Lead Architect - Sports Applications @ SAP AppHaus @ SAP AppHaus (Part of SAP Labs )
Jan 2013 – Jan 2014 | San Francisco Bay Area
Social Group Seating (SGS) - (Design thinking partner  - Stanford Athletics Board) 
- I led the development of a socially-driven sports ticketing platform that aimed to boost attendance at university games by facilitating group seating. The platform allows friends & families to purchase tickets separately at different times while ensuring they sit together during the game. We ideated, defined, and implemented the comprehensive solution in just two months, building the platform and application from scratch and integrating with Paciollan, a legacy ticketing system.  
I took responsibility for the entire engineering work and collaborated with stakeholders, including the Stanford Athletic Board team. We developed many core frameworks such as the Front Controller framework, Multi-tenancy support, social authentication (Facebook/Google), Session Management, and Cache busting, all on a brand-new platform.
- HANA XS, HANA, JavaScript, SQL Script, SAP UI5, Maven, NGNIX

Fan Identity Platform (FID) for Sport Teams - (Design thinking partner: Madison Square Garden)
- FID brings ‘unrelated’ data of a sports fan together from many data sources (e.g., Ticketmaster, Facebook, Acxiom) together. Came up with a metadata-based data integration & unification mechanism leveraging in-memory DB capabilities (Patented). Developed a fault tolerant fan data unification engine that identifies delta data loads and processes them to create the fan golden record and its relationship to source data.
- HANA, HANA XS, SAP UI5, JavaScript, SQL Script

NFL Scouting (URL: https://goo.gl/1BDFyb ) (Design thinking partner: 49ers)
- SAP Scouting enables professional teams to analyze, and recruit players to provide the best team on the field. Built the first beta version of the product and later built the v1 product and developed the ‘Extension’ Framework supporting multiple customer deployments
- Java, HANA

### Development Architect - EPM Apps @ SAP Labs LLC
Jan 2012 – Jan 2013 | San Francisco Bay Area
- Part of the team that defined the first SAPDesign System - FIORI, to build consumer-grade business applications.
- As a part of the core team of the design system, built the first app to showcase using the design system (View Sales Order) which later became the standard for building SAP UI5 Tech

### Fellow - Solution Management - Go to Market - (HANA Cloud) @ SAP Labs LLC, Palo Alto
Jan 2012 – Jan 2012
As a fellow In-Memory DB Go-to-Market team identified opportunities for an In-memory DB in cloud. Leveraging prior SaaS platform engineering expertise, gained tangential exposure in aspects as software
positioning, mid-long-term strategy, cost models, pricing, market research, etc.
Key achievements/leanings:
- Provide recommendation for positioning HANA in Open Sources/PaaS segments, which got
implemented (a)HANA as a DB service in Cloud Foundry and (b) HANA DB driver for Node.js
- Created Market Research Document providing recommendations for HANA multi-tenancy
- Worked with AWS team to launch HANA developer edition in AWS
- Developed cost models for various data provisioning options

### Senior Developer & Development Architect @ SAP Labs
Jan 2007 – Jan 2012 | San Francisco Bay Area
SAP Sourcing & Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) is a Cloud-based SaaS procurement application.
- Designed and developed various platform capabilities such as Change History, document & daemon framework, various application features in RFX & Contract management
- Conceived and implemented middleware-less integration framework with On-premise SAP ERP considering multi-tenant deployment & upgrades
- Decreased memory footprint of the application by 30% accommodating 50% more objects for the same hardware. In addition, implemented a concept of collection list filters to support huge composite objects.
- Helped customers & partners by proactively answering questions to the platform/product in SAP’s stack-overflow named SCN, was a top 1 contributor for Bridge Platform/E-Sourcing
- Java, J2EE, various open sources, Oracle, XML, SAP PI, etc.

### Development Lead @ SAP Labs
Jan 2004 – Jan 2007 | Bangalore
As part of the ByDesign Cloud Platform tools team, built various tools required for developer productivity. Tools include service coverage analyzers, test tools (model based & API test tools)
- ABAP OO, Java, SCOV, QTP, ABAP/JAVA WebDynpro, JNI, etc.

### Project Engineer @ Wipro Technologies
Jan 2002 – Jan 2004 | Bangalore
Cisco Intelligent Contact Management (ICM) - Customer: Cisco Systems
Developed a test configuration framework for a Telecom application. Implemented various basic data structures & framework for setup & tear down

### Software Engineer @ Intermedia Softech
Jan 2001 – Jan 2002 | Bangalore
Mobile Games: Developed 3 mobile games using J2ME MIDlet technology
The Mall: Implemented a unique interactive Map of a physical mall for users to find the shortest route between two shops or entrance based on applet using Dijkstra’s Algorithm


## Education
### M.S in Software Systems
Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani

### B.E in Electrical & Electronics Engg
Shanmugha Arts, Science, Technology and Research Academy

### St. Antony's Hr Sec Schol


## Contact & Social
- LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/jbaski

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Source: https://flows.cv/baskaran
JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/baskaran/resume.json
Last updated: 2026-04-12