Harish Kandala

Senior Software Engineer
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Contact Info

  • Bangalore, India
  • https://hkandala.dev

Work Experience

Visa Inc.

Senior Software Engineer
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Jul, 2019 - Current
  • Analyzed and optimized performance-intensive APIs that are critical to the user experience. Achieved drastic improvements in load times (8 min to 16 sec, 15 min to 20 sec) by executing complex client-side JS code on the server using the Nashorn JS engine. Configured and deployed the Elastic APM server to monitor the real-time performance metrics and alert on anomaly detection.
  • Developed a distributed asynchronous task framework using Spring JMS, ActiveMQ, and MySQL as Task Store, to provide a reliable method to run hundreds of tasks in parallel, ensuring no single server is overloaded.
  • Designed and orchestrated an in-house Cloud IDE using Docker, code-server, and Express.js, where developers can request for a fully configured environment to code and debug their changes entirely in the browser. Enhanced developer experience and productivity with this dashboard as it is easier and faster to test changes.
  • Redesigned the entire cache layer by integrating Hazelcast CaaS, thereby reducing the API latency by more than 14%. Also, enabled shared sessions using Hazelcast as a session store to avoid the single point of failure.
  • Guided a team of 8 developers as Tech Lead and led the migration of a web app with 100+ AngularJS components to Angular 10. The migration process was lauded for its minimal disruption to user experience and feature delivery.
  • Initiated Explore and Share program in the team to inspire and motivate young developers on new technologies. Gave multiple tech sessions and discussions over 2 weeks and helped to close technical gaps among juniors. Many novel ideas originated from new hires as a result of this program.

Visa Inc.

Software Engineer
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Jul, 2017 - Jun, 2019
  • Contributed to various critical modules in Visa's global billing platform, which aims to supplant all existing regional billing platforms that are responsible for 33% of Visa’s revenue. Technologies used are Spring Boot, TypeScript, AngularJS, Angular 10, and MySQL.
  • Automated the manual process of extracting data from multiple excel files and seeding configuration tables using a Node.js script, effectively saving more than 840 hours.
  • Launched Food Consumption Dashboard to summarize and aggregate employee's canteen and pantry bills at Visa Bangalore site. Used React.js for web UI. React Native for mobile UI and Spring MVC REST API as backend. Recognized as one of the most innovative projects in Visa's Tech Club.

Visa Inc.

Software Engineer Intern
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Jun, 2016 - Aug, 2016
  • Built a cross-platform status tracker dashboard using Angular 2 and Ionic framework for Visa’s billing platform by parsing information from multiple data streams. Actively engaged and participated in various tech events in Visa’s Global Intern Summit 2017 held in San Francisco.

Education

Vellore Institute of Technology

Bachelor of Technology in Computer Science
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Jul, 2013 - Apr, 2017
  • GPA: 9.06/10
  • Relevant Coursework: Software Engineering, Software Project Management, Object-Oriented Paradigm and Programming, Internet and Web Programming, Database Systems, Data Structures and Algorithms, Algorithm Design and Analysis, Operating Systems and Computer Networks.

Open Source Projects

KeepUp

  • Created a Progressive Web App (PWA) using Next.js that groups news feeds from multiple sources like HackerNews, Reddit, Dev.to, etc., and lists them in a configurable dashboard.
  • Built API endpoints using auto-scalable Node.js serverless functions and hosted on Vercel PaaS.

Cloud Compiler API

  • Implemented and deployed a RESTful API that compiles source code in the cloud, supporting more than 70 programming languages. Developed as an open-source alternative to SphereEngine API by scraping the Ideone website using PHP as a backend.
  • Generated documentation with the Slate API Docs Generator. Provided API clients in Java and Python languages.

Research Projects

Handwriting Synthesis using Deep Recurrent Neural Networks

  • Designed a generative model using TensorFlow that synthesizes handwriting data for any input text. Generated data can be restricted to follow any of the five pre-trained handwriting styles.
  • The compiled model contains three layers of LSTMs, one Mixture Density Network, and a differentiable attention mechanism. Trained on the IAM-OnDB dataset containing handwritten lines gathered from 223 writers.

Publications

  • K. Manoj Kumar, Harish Kandala, N Sudhakar Reddy: Synthesizing and Imitating Handwriting using Deep Recurrent Neural Networks and Mixture Density Networks. International Conference on Computing, Communication, and Networking Technologies, Bangalore, India; 10/2018, DOI: 10.1109/ICCCNT.2018.8493843
  • Harish Kandala, B.K. Tripathy, K. Manoj Kumar: A Framework to Collect and Visualize User’s Browser History for Better User Experience and Personalized Recommendations. International Conference on Information and Communication Technology for Intelligent Systems, Ahmedabad, India; 08/2017, DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-63673-3_26

Technical Skills

  • Languages: Java, JavaScript, TypeScript, Python, PHP, C++, C, HTML5, CSS3
  • Databases: MySQL, MongoDB, Hazelcast, Redis
  • Technologies: Spring Boot, Node.js, Angular, React, React Native, Next.js, Electron, jQuery, Express.js, Flask, Apache ActiveMQ, AWS, Docker, Elastic Stack, Prometheus, Grafana, TensorFlow

Extracurricular Activities / Achievements

  • Multiple Go Beyond and Above Awards and Curious and Creative Award at Visa Inc., 2020
  • Webinar Speaker on “An Intro to Full Stack Development”, SV Engineering College, Tirupati, 2020
  • Best Project in ESIC 2017, International Society for Scientific Research and Development, 2017
  • Web Administrator at IEEE VIT Student Branch, VIT University, 2016
  • Technical Head at Huawei VIT - The Corporate Club, VIT University, 2016
  • Workshop Speaker on “Introduction to Web Development”, Gravitas'15, VIT University, 2015