# Shailendra Dharmistan

> Principal Architect | Builder | Zero Trust & Multi-Cloud Security | Built $100M ARR platform | Kubernetes • Rust • Go • mTLS/PKI

Location: San Jose, California, United States
Profile: https://flows.cv/shailendradharmistan

I build and scale zero-trust, multi-cloud security platforms. As a day-one engineer turned lead architect, I helped take a cloud-native workload egress product from concept to $100M ARR, serving 500+ enterprises and 1M+ workloads across AWS, Azure, GCP, and Sovereign Clouds. I focus on SSE/SASE, identity, high-performance data planes, and reliability, measured by faster multi-cloud launches (12->3 months), P0 incidents -38% YoY, policy P95 ≤ 60s, and 99.9%+ fleet uptime. Recently: formal design authority over identity, autoscaling, and policy enforcement; provider-neutral architectures with Crossplane/Terraform; mTLS/PKI patterns fit for regulated environments (FedRAMP High / DoD IL5). Now advising early-stage teams shipping zero-trust data planes and multi-cloud control planes.

## Work Experience
### Principal Software Engineer @ Zscaler
Jan 2019 – Present | San Jose, CA
Product: Zscaler Cloud Connector—zero-trust workload egress via ZIA/ZPA; modern VPN/firewall alternative.
Scope: technical owner for identity, autoscaling, policy across AWS/Azure/GCP/OCI; formal design authority.
Impact: grew from concept to $100M ARR; 500+ enterprises, 1M+ workloads, 10K+ deployments.
Multi-cloud acceleration: provider-neutral services & CSP adapters (Crossplane/Terraform) → 12→3 mo launches.
Reliability/SDLC: SLO/error-budget, progressive delivery, AIOps; P0 −38% YoY, P95 ≤ 60s (P99 ≤ 180s).
Capacity/uptime: 16× per-cluster sessions, 3× per-VM; ~2-min autoscaling; 99.9%+ uptime.
Hands-on: Go services (policy engine, identity broker, autoscaler), K8s operators, Crossplane/Terraform modules.
Customer results: MTTR −46%; direct engagement with 50+ F500 accounts; expansion revenue $10M+.

### Senior Technical Leader @ Cisco
Jan 2015 – Jan 2019 | San Francisco Bay Area
Lead Engineer/Open Source Software Developer on the Cisco ACI platform focusing on bringing application policy abstraction to opensource Compute and Networking stacks.
•	Designed and developed infrastructure software to deploy Cisco ACI Container Networking Interface (CNI) plugins on Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform.
•	Designed and developed infrastructure features on open source networking stacks
•	Designed and developed OpFlex Agent Features. OpFlex is a southbound protocol in a software-defined network (SDN) designed to facilitate the communications between the SDN Controller and open source infrastructure (switches and routers).
•	Designed, developed and deployed OpenStack, Kubernetes, VMware and Microsoft SCVMM virtual machines at massive scale on various on-prem and cloud platforms using open-source automation tools.

### Technical Leader @ Cisco
Jan 2013 – Jan 2015 | San Jose
Lead Engineer on Cisco's IOS-based operating system that enabled packet switching on next-generation enterprise networks.

### Senior Software Development Engineer @ Cisco
Jan 2004 – Jan 2013 | San Jose
Application Optimizer Lead Engineer on Cisco's WAN Optimization Solution - WAAS. The role involves designing and developing next-generation optimizer for Microsoft CIFS/SMB protocol.

Lead engineer on Cisco's Global Site Selector (GSS) platform. The role involved designing and developing a proximity-based Global Server Load Balancer.

### Software Developer In Test @ Motorola Solutions
Jan 2003 – Jan 2004 | Bengaluru Area, India
•	Software Test Engineer on Symbol's WS5000 Wireless LAN switch platform.
•	Designed and Developed Infrastructure and Platform tools to support software development workflow.


## Education
### Post Graduate Diploma in Advanced Computing in Computer Engineering
Centre for Development of Advanced Computing, New Delhi

### Bachelor of Technology - BTech in Engineering
College of Engineering, Trivandrum (CET)


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

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