# Raghu Balaji > Software Engineering Leader | System Architecture | Modernizing Data Center Location: San Francisco Bay Area, United States Profile: https://flows.cv/raghubalaji I am a software development professional with extensive experience in the Networking Services, IP Security, Virtualization and Mobile Gateways. Possess expertise in executing projects through entire life cycle with the focus on delivery of quality and performance. I have led many teams and delivered innovative solutions to complex problems. • Strong skills in SDN, Virtualization Qemu-KVM, Linux, L2 Switching, NPU programming • In-depth understanding of IPsec, switching, routing, STP, BGP, OSPF, BFD, HSRP, PCRF, Radius/Diameter, Intel DPDK. ## Work Experience ### Principal Software Engineer @ IP Infusion Jan 2021 – Present | Santa Clara, CA Architect and lead the design / development of a gNMI-based streaming telemetry platform. In this role, I drive the technical effort to rebuild our network observability stack from the ground up. By moving to a streaming telemetry model, we provide customers with unprecedented visibility into micro-bursts and congestion; issues previously "invisible" to legacy tools. This modernization provides the business with real-time, actionable data and high-fidelity monitoring. Furthermore, I mentor a team of engineers in the creation of high-performance telemetry collectors and advanced automation tools. I am passionate about building self-healing networks that scale with the demands of modern AI/ML workloads, and I specialize in bridging the gap between traditional network engineering and modern software practices.  Open Networking & Observability | Specializing in gNMI Streaming Telemetry & OpenConfig | Building High-Fidelity Monitoring for AI-Scale Infrastructure | Modernizing Data Center Telemetry ### Co-founder and Technical Lead @ Stealth Startup Jan 2020 – Jan 2021 Manage Workloads on Edge Compute @scale • As co-founder and lead architect, designed and developed manageability infrastructure, a set of rich libraries which exposes APIs that helps in deploy, orchestrate, telemetry and event handling of edge devices. • Built a prototype to showcase the benefits of using this management infra, which makes managing the edge devices and workloads easier. ### Sr. Technical Leader @ Cisco Jan 2015 – Jan 2020 | San Francisco Bay Area Edge Computing Services on Access/Edge Routers: * Lead architect to design/develop a prototype of Docker container based APP services such as, "Service and Network Monitoring" and "Distributed detection of DDoS attack". Cisco Core Routers based on IOS-XR: * Broadband Network Gateway: Key person to design, develop HTTP Header Enrichment based on Policy Based Routing (PBR) and HTTP Redirect. * Lead the manageability team to design/develop/customize router management solutions based on Netconf, XML,Yang, Telemetry. * Design/develop/improve performance of some of the core infrastructure components of XR software. * Groom the team to deliver high available system in the industry. ### Software Engineer @ Startup Jan 2015 – Jan 2015 As Co Founder/Engineer, led the design and development of a mobile IT platform for enterprises to secure and manage mobile applications. Provide seamless secure access to enterprise applications on personal mobile devices, certificate-based security, enforcing user authentication, secure enterprise contents on mobile device and a platform for IT to manage devices. Thus making BYOD to work easier. ### Technical Leader @ Cisco Jan 2005 – Jan 2014 One of the key person to design the virtualized, next-gen IPsec Security Gateway on Cisco ASR9000 edge router. Using the SDN concepts, delivered key features Reverse Route Injection, high availability, geo-redundancy, X.509 certificate sync with high quality and ahead of schedule. Reduced the switchover time significantly to less than 2 seconds, exceeding the customer requirement. Responsible for initial architecture of Cisco 7600/SAMI based IPsec Wireless Security Gateway product, after evaluating multiple hardware and software options. Wireless Security Gateway on Cisco 7600 router is a very successful and high throughput IPsec gateway, deployed in various service providers’ LTE, Femto, and Small Cell network today. Involved in the architecture and design of mobile data traffic off-load using edge router ASR9000, thus bypassing the SGSN/GGSN, SGW/PGW gateways. This approach reduces the capex / opex costs of the service providers, and delivers better user experience. Key person to design/implement Network Service Director product , based on Content Services Gateway that is deployed in LTE network. It is a deep packet inspection gateway, which diverts traffic to Internet if it doesn’t require further optimization, thus saving capex costs in the SP network. Key contributor to design/implementation of Session Border Controller on Cisco CRS-DRP router, and DDoS solution on Cisco GSR 12000. ### Sr. Embedded Engineer @ Intel Jan 1997 – Jan 2005 Founding engineer in two startup projects in Intel New Business Initiatives. • Digital Set Top Box for Video on Demand • MPEG2 TS Stream broadcast over UHF Key person to bringup up eCos Redboot bootloader, linux kernel on DSTB. Designed/developed Command/Data bus and DM9000 Ethernet controller drivers, security framework DTCP over IP. Customized Linux OS, SNMP, DHCP clients for DSTB based on XScale PXA255. Designed & developed drivers for MAC/PHY, VLAN 802.1Q, Aggregation 802.1ad, QOS (DiffServ, 802.1p), and DMA Interface modules on VxWorks for Intel’s Switching/Routing ASIC. Implemented VLAN and aggregation modules for daisy chain stacking topology of pizza box switches. Authored multiple architecture documents & whitepapers on various networking topics. Key person in the development of Cluster Computing Tool (NetBatch) for Linux & Windows platforms. Responsible for design and development of Load Computing, User Intrusion detection, NetBatch on Win64 and Error Reporting sub-system for Unix NetBatch. Made algorithmic and performance investigations, and tuned the tool to improve overall throughput or performance. ## Education ### Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and Engineering Kuvempu University ## Contact & Social - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/raghu-balaji-2155b52 --- Source: https://flows.cv/raghubalaji JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/raghubalaji/resume.json Last updated: 2026-04-12