Sharad Bajaj — VP of Engineering

I am a senior engineering executive with 25+ years of experience building and scaling enterprise software, cloud platforms, and AI-native systems used by millions of customers globally. I was a founding member of Microsoft Teams and have since led global engineering organizations across Microsoft and AWS Amazon Connect (CcaaS), spanning large-scale distributed systems, data platforms, and generative AI. Today, my focus is on building AI-native enterprise platforms where LLMs, data systems, and agent workflows come together to deliver real business outcomes. My work includes: • Agentic AI systems and AI agents that can reason, act, and integrate with enterprise workflows • LLM platform architecture, including Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) and grounding systems • Evaluation-driven development (LLM evals) to improve reliability, safety, and quality over time • Data + AI platforms that unify analytics, applications, and decision systems • Responsible and trustworthy AI, including governance, compliance, and explainability I believe enterprise AI fails when treated as a model problem. It succeeds when designed as a system grounded in business semantics, constrained by real-world data, and measured by decision quality, not just model accuracy. I focus on operationalizing this through: • Business ontology and semantic layers for enterprise AI • Decision-grade platforms connecting data, models, and actions • Scalable AI infrastructure designed for production, not demos • Alignment across engineering, product, and business teams Across my career, I’ve learned the hardest problems are not model performance, but: • Designing for real-world failure modes • Scaling systems under production constraints • Building AI systems that earn long-term trust I am particularly interested in connecting with leaders working on enterprise AI platforms, agent ecosystems, LLM infrastructure, and evaluation-driven systems.

Stackforce AI infers this person is a senior engineering executive specializing in AI-driven enterprise solutions and cloud platforms.

Location: Seattle, WA, USA

Experience: 26 yrs 6 mos

Skills

Ai Platforms
Engineering Management
Platform Architecture
Cloud Computing
Contact Center As A Service (ccaas)
Product Development
Software Development

Career Highlights

25+ years of experience in enterprise software and AI systems.
Founding member of Microsoft Teams, leading global engineering.
Expert in building AI-native enterprise platforms.

Work Experience

Microsoft

Vice President of Engineering (Agent 365) (5 mos)

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Director of Engineering (1 yr 11 mos)

Engineering Leader - Amazon Connect (AWS) (4 yrs 1 mo)

Microsoft

Engineering leader (GEM) - Microsoft Teams (2 yrs 6 mos)

Principal Software Engineering Manager - Microsoft Teams (2 yrs 2 mos)

Senior Engineering Manager - Bing Apps (5 mos)

Senior Engineering Manager -Bing Travel (10 mos)

Senior Engineering Manager - Dynamics CRM (2 yrs 2 mos)

Software Engineer II - Microsoft Office - Business Contact Manager (5 yrs 11 mos)

Minecode LLC USA

SDE (9 mos)

WOW Vision Pte. Ltd -Singapore

Software Design Engineer (2 yrs 11 mos)

Freshfield Communication Pvt Ltd

Software Design Engineer (1 yr 8 mos)

Veer

Programmer (1 yr 5 mos)

Education

B.Sc at Gurukula Kangri Vishwavidyalaya

High school at JIC Haridwar,UP India

Sharad Bajaj

VP of Engineering

Seattle, WA, USA26 yrs 6 mos experience

Highly StableAI Enabled

Key Highlights

25+ years of experience in enterprise software and AI systems.
Founding member of Microsoft Teams, leading global engineering.
Expert in building AI-native enterprise platforms.

Stackforce AI infers this person is a senior engineering executive specializing in AI-driven enterprise solutions and cloud platforms.

Contact

Skills

Core Skills

Ai PlatformsEngineering ManagementPlatform ArchitectureCloud ComputingContact Center As A Service (ccaas)Product DevelopmentSoftware Development

Other Skills

AI-driven decisionsengineering excellencedata governancesemantic architectureAI agentsplatform capabilitiescloud-native solutionsAI implementationsecurity frameworksAI integrationcloud servicesenterprise securityAI-driven solutionscontact center automationIVR capabilities

About

Experience

Microsoft

Vice President of Engineering (Agent 365)

Oct 2025 – Present · 5 mos · Redmond, Washington, United States · On-site

As Vice President of Engineering, I am responsible for building the core platforms that define how enterprises model business meaning, govern data, and power AI-driven decisions at scale.
My role spans product vision, platform architecture, and execution across globally distributed engineering teams. I focus on turning complex enterprise reality into simple, reliable, and reusable platform capabilities that customers can trust. This includes leading the design and delivery of Dataverse as a semantic and operational foundation for applications, analytics, Copilots, and AI agents across Microsoft and partner ecosystems.
A central part of my responsibility is ensuring that enterprise AI systems are grounded in clear ontology, shared definitions, and governed rules, so every app and agent reasons and acts consistently with how the business actually operates. I work closely with product, research, design, and customers to translate real-world business concepts into scalable, secure, and decision-ready platform primitives.
My role also includes:
Setting long-term technical and architectural direction for large-scale data and AI platforms
Driving engineering excellence across reliability, performance, security, and compliance
Building and scaling high-performing teams and leaders across multiple geographies
Operationalizing AI quality through evals-driven development and production feedback loops
Partnering with customers to ensure platforms solve real enterprise problems, not abstract ones
At its core, my job is to ensure that engineering investment directly translates into customer trust, business clarity, and durable platform value. I measure success not just by features shipped, but by whether customers can build faster, reason better, and make decisions with confidence using the platforms my teams deliver.

AI-driven decisionsplatform architectureengineering excellencedata governanceAI PlatformsEngineering Management

Amazon web services (aws)

2 roles

Director of Engineering

Promoted

Oct 2023 – Sep 2025 · 1 yr 11 mos · On-site

As Director of Engineering at AWS, I provide strategic leadership to a globally distributed team of 200+ engineers and leaders, driving innovation and product development to empower enterprises in creating exceptional customer experiences through cloud-native solutions.
My responsibilities include:
Strategic Leadership & Infrastructure: I define strategic direction for engineering efforts, architecting scalable infrastructure solutions supporting millions of concurrent interactions. My focus spans enterprise cloud services and Customer Experience (CX) innovation, particularly in AI implementation and security frameworks.
AI-Driven Enterprise Solutions: Leading development of enterprise-grade cloud services that harness AI to transform business operations. Our solutions elevate service delivery across multiple digital channels while maintaining enterprise-grade security and scalability.
Back Office & Workflow Automation: Pioneering enterprise automation solutions, leveraging AI for enhanced efficiency and reduced operational overhead. We implement scalable workflow engines for complex business processes while ensuring security and compliance standards.
Infrastructure Scaling & Security: Building highly available, fault-tolerant systems that scale effectively for enterprise demands. This includes implementing robust security measures, ensuring data protection, and maintaining compliance with global regulations while optimizing performance.
Digital Integration & Innovation: Developing cloud services with AI for intelligent, context-aware operations. Our solutions integrate seamlessly across digital platforms while maintaining stringent security protocols.
Technical Excellence & Compliance: Creating high-quality, secure, compliant services (SOC2, HIPAA, PCI) with an AI foundation. We implement comprehensive security measures while pursuing technical excellence, cementing AWS's leadership in cloud computing.

cloud-native solutionsAI implementationsecurity frameworksCloud ComputingEngineering Management

Engineering Leader - Amazon Connect (AWS)

Sep 2019 – Oct 2023 · 4 yrs 1 mo · On-site

As a senior leader in the AWS Applications org, I played a pivotal role in managing a cross-geographical team of over 100+ engineers and leaders within Amazon Connect. In this role, I actively contributed to innovation and product development, enabling contact centers and businesses to create strong connections with their customers, driving business growth and success.
My responsibilities included:
Leadership and Strategy : I actively contributed to defining the strategic direction for our engineering efforts, aligning them with AWS's overarching mission. This involved a focus on shaping the contact center and Customer Experience (CX) landscape, with a strong emphasis on leveraging AWS's resources.
AI-Infused Solutions : I was deeply involved in the development of AI-driven solutions for Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS), redefining customer experiences through the use of cutting-edge AI technologies. These solutions elevated self-service interfaces and seamlessly integrated advanced technology within the AWS ecosystem.
Contact center Automation: I played a crucial role in pioneering back-office automation solutions, enhancing operational efficiency, customer service, and reducing operational overhead by leveraging automation.
IVR Innovation: I was a key contributor to the innovation of Interactive Voice Response (IVR) capabilities, making interactions more intelligent and context-aware, which significantly improved customer service.
Excellence in Execution : My team and I were dedicated to delivering high-quality, secure, and compliant distributed services and infrastructures for CCaaS, consistently striving for technical excellence.
In this role, my passion was in revolutionizing the contact center industry, offering AI-driven solutions that exceeded industry standards. My commitment was unwavering in advancing AWS's position in AI-infused CCaaS, making a significant impact within the organization.

AI-driven solutionscontact center automationIVR capabilitiesContact Center as a Service (CCaaS)Engineering Management

Microsoft

6 roles

Engineering leader (GEM) - Microsoft Teams

Mar 2017 – Sep 2019 · 2 yrs 6 mos

During my tenure at Microsoft Teams, I had the opportunity to lead multiple aspects of the Calling and Meeting, Meeting Room devices, and Broadcast business for Microsoft Teams. My primary focus was to ensure that Microsoft Teams offered the best-in-class calling and meeting solution for Office 365.
As a leader, I was responsible for overseeing a cross-functional team of developers both on-site and off-shore in Prague. In addition, I led the design and architecture for enterprise calling and Meetings experience, ensuring that the solutions met the needs of our clients.
One of my core responsibilities was ensuring the engineering fundamentals, DevOps, and reliability of calling and meeting. I worked closely with my team to ensure that we delivered high-quality, secure, and reliable solutions to our clients.
As part of my role, I also had the opportunity to build and lead a team of talented developers in three different locations. This included hiring the best talent, providing mentorship and guidance, and fostering a culture of collaboration and innovation.

calling and meeting solutionsDevOpsreliabilityEngineering ManagementProduct Development

Principal Software Engineering Manager - Microsoft Teams

Promoted

Jan 2015 – Mar 2017 · 2 yrs 2 mos

Leading team to deliver product for next generation communication , collaboration and productivity. Designing , Building application and backend services by leveraging exchange, share point , azure active directory and web application based on angularjs , typeScript, JavaScript , CSS.

application designbackend servicescollaboration toolsSoftware DevelopmentEngineering Management

Senior Engineering Manager - Bing Apps

Aug 2014 – Jan 2015 · 5 mos

Spearheaded a group of skilled developers in the implementation and enhancement of the common client infrastructure utilized by the Bing Applications. This infrastructure was used across multiple platforms, including Windows 8.1, Windows Phone 8/8.1, and MSN.com.
In addition to this, I played a key role in the architecture and implementation of the middle tier infrastructure that was required for caching and synchronization of personalization data in Azure.

client infrastructurecachingsynchronizationSoftware DevelopmentEngineering Management

Senior Engineering Manager -Bing Travel

Oct 2013 – Aug 2014 · 10 mos

Leading a team for Delivering Bing Travel Application for Smart Devices.

Senior Engineering Manager - Dynamics CRM

Aug 2011 – Oct 2013 · 2 yrs 2 mos

Led an engineering team of Microsoft Dynamics CRM Sales and Solution team. Led designing, developing complex product features and solutions for Business process automation.

Software Engineer II - Microsoft Office - Business Contact Manager

Sep 2005 – Aug 2011 · 5 yrs 11 mos

Oct-2009 to Present
Working on Outlook Client for Microsoft Dyanmics CRM it brings Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online into the every day Outlook experience by displaying the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online areas as subfolders in the Outlook mail folders. With a few exceptions, all of the same functionality is available, including setup and configuration features.
Working on features which enable richness in CRM outlook client.
Working with sync component to sync the data between outlook and crm via MAPI. Implemented Recurring appointment's Recurrence blob protocol to parse and construct the recurrence information.
Worked with Business Contact Manager for Outlook V4 (Office 2010 ) and V3 (office 2007). Awesome product for small business. Cool UI Outlook look and feel and more..

Minecode llc usa

SDE

Sep 2005 – Jun 2006 · 9 mos

Worked as vendor with Microsoft for WebBCM (one of the key Office live product for contact management). Worked on Sharepoint to design and develop app, Worked with Sharepoint team to make Sharepoint a web development platform.