Dhruv Baldawa — CTO

I love transforming reality using technology to create an impact. I have experience in - * Architecting technological ecosystems that are scalable and cost-effective * Building / Deprecating legacy codebases into microservices / SOA-based architecture using methodologies like Domain-driven design * Driving adoption and implementing CI/CD, DevOps, TDD practices to accelerate value delivery and unlock efficiency * Architecting, building, and maintaining full-stack systems (infrastructure / serverless, backend, and frontend/mobile) * Managing product and engineering teams * Aligning engineering strategy with business objectives and collaborating with cross-functional teams to drive innovation and process improvements I'm a big advocate for autonomous engineering teams that are free to innovate and create without unnecessary roadblocks. I'm all about fostering a collaborative and inclusive work culture that encourages creativity and out-of-the-box thinking while keeping an eye on project deadlines and delivering results. I can speak and write Python, PHP, Ruby, Java, C, Javascript, Typescript, CoffeeScript. I play with my Kubernetes cluster in my spare time and write some Go / Typescript / Python code. Recently, I have been playing a lot with my machine learning models. I am interested in "Problem Solving" and will always be. I like problems involving Distributed Systems, High-Performance Computing, Artificial Intelligence, and Machine Learning or trying to solve any social issue like mass education. I am obsessed with personal and organizational productivity and am always looking at how we can have an edge by moving fast. Awards: * National Cyber Olympiad Gold medallist, 2007 * Inter-college champions for Infosys Campus Connect Aspirations2020, 2009 * Google Summer of Code, 2011 with Drupal Association * Google Summer of Code, 2012 with Drupal Association Specialties: Logical Reasoning, Problem Solving, Creativity, Fast learner, Introspection.

Stackforce AI infers this person is a Fintech expert with a strong focus on engineering leadership and scalable architecture.

Experience: 17 yrs 6 mos

Skills

Engineering Leadership
Generative Ai
Agile Development

Career Highlights

Expert in architecting scalable tech ecosystems.
Advocate for autonomous engineering teams.
Proven track record in driving engineering strategy.

Work Experience

Paystack

Lead Architect (1 yr 2 mos)

Engineering Manager (2 yrs 6 mos)

Principal Engineer (8 mos)

Technical Lead (1 yr)

dubizzle

Engineering Manager (7 mos)

Staff Software Engineer (1 yr 11 mos)

Senior Software Engineer (1 yr 1 mo)

Udacity

Full Stack Engineer (8 mos)

Leaf Technologies Pvt. Ltd.

Senior Software Engineer (1 yr 4 mos)

Enthought

Software Developer (2 yrs 6 mos)

Drupal Association

Google Summer of Code 2012 Intern (4 mos)

Google Summer of Code 2011 Intern (3 mos)

Drupal CMS development

Contributor (2 yrs 4 mos)

Mumbai University

Computer Engineering Student (4 yrs)

Education

Android Developer Nanodegree at Udacity

BE at University of Mumbai

HSC at Thakur College of Science and Technology

Dhruv Baldawa

CTO

United Arab Emirates17 yrs 6 mos experience

Most Likely To SwitchAI Enabled

Key Highlights

Expert in architecting scalable tech ecosystems.
Advocate for autonomous engineering teams.
Proven track record in driving engineering strategy.

Stackforce AI infers this person is a Fintech expert with a strong focus on engineering leadership and scalable architecture.

Contact

Skills

Core Skills

Engineering LeadershipGenerative AiAgile Development

Other Skills

ScrumAI AgentsPrompt EngineeringLarge Language Models (LLM)Personal DevelopmentTeam ManagementStrategic ThinkingSoft SkillsResearch SkillsEngineering ManagementKubernetesCloud ManagementDockerCoaching & MentoringMySQL

About

Experience

17 yrs 6 mos

Total Experience

2 yrs 3 mos

Average Tenure

5 yrs 4 mos

Current Experience

Paystack

4 roles

Lead Architect

Promoted

Mar 2025 – Present · 1 yr 2 mos · Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Engineering Manager

Sep 2022 – Mar 2025 · 2 yrs 6 mos · Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Led the Platform department involving 3+ teams owning business-critical and core technologies for money collection, movement, and disbursement.
Built internal tools using LLMs and Generative AI to improve the support resolution process.
Created executive reports using ML and LLMs to summarize findings and propose next steps.
Upskilled engineers by providing workshops on prompt engineering, working with LLMs, and leveraging Agentic IDEs to improve productivity.
Helped drive engineering vision and strategy for the Platform department to achieve engineering outcomes while balancing business priorities and value.
Developed and managed cloud-based on-demand developer environments on Kubernetes to improve onboarding and developer velocity.
Streamlined operations for the internal support ticketing system across the department by standardizing processes and fostering collaboration using tools like runbooks and automation via Zapier.
Streamlined delivery across Platform teams by close collaboration with leadership, product, and engineers with emphasis on building autonomous and resilient teams
Worked closely with 15+ reports across all my teams to ensure their roles are clear and set up for success and growth.
Managed various initiatives like archiving stale data, double-entry accounting, data exports, webhooks delivery, financial reconciliation

Engineering LeadershipScrumGenerative AIAI AgentsPrompt EngineeringLarge Language Models (LLM)+7

Principal Engineer

Promoted

Jan 2022 – Sep 2022 · 8 mos · Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Lead initiatives to improve Developer Productivity by moving from Docker to Kubernetes-based developer environments, reducing onboarding time from multiple days to a few minutes.
Migrated our 30+TB production MySQL database to a newer instance because we were running out autoincrement value for primary keys on our critical tables.
Architected and drove the platformization effort to rearchitect our software stack and organization structure to facilitate rapid expansion and iteration.
Mentored and groomed engineers to help them grow within the company and get used to their new role change.

Engineering LeadershipScrumDockerPersonal DevelopmentAgile DevelopmentCoaching & Mentoring+3

Technical Lead

Dec 2020 – Dec 2021 · 1 yr · Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Rebuilt core Payments infrastructure to enable rapid expansion into newer markets.
Worked on creating a plan and migrating legacy applications to a microservices architecture.
Lead and optimized the team's value delivery as we grew from 2 to 10+ engineers.

Engineering LeadershipScrumDockerPersonal DevelopmentAgile DevelopmentPHP+6

Dubizzle

3 roles

Engineering Manager

Promoted

Apr 2020 – Nov 2020 · 7 mos

Lead and managed the DevOps / Infrastructure / SRE team.
Designed and built a platform running 35+ microservices with emphasis on
developer experience, observability, and optimal resource utilization.
Created the product roadmap for internal DevOps and developer tooling initiatives.
Built long-term DevOps strategy for the platform using tools like Wardley maps.

Engineering LeadershipScrumDockerPersonal DevelopmentAgile DevelopmentTeam Management+4

Staff Software Engineer

Promoted

May 2018 – Apr 2020 · 1 yr 11 mos

Implemented foundation for building an event-driven microservices architecture processing 75M+ events a day.
Worked on migrating a legacy monolithic system into a microservices architecture using the Domain-Driven Design (DDD) methodology.
Facilitated adoption of the 4 key metrics and DevOps culture within the organization.
Streamlined the CI / CD and release workflow within the organization to optimize
software release cycle time.
Played an important role in the technical direction while understanding the business
context to optimize value delivery.
Developed a framework to implement a reusable local development environment, which reduced the setup time from multiple weeks to less than an hour.
Built data pipelines to measure and optimize the operational efficiency of the department.
Mentored engineers and interns to help them grow in their careers and be important
contributors to the department.
Conducted training within the department to upskill the engineering team

Engineering LeadershipScrumDockerPersonal DevelopmentAgile DevelopmentCoaching & Mentoring+3

Senior Software Engineer

Apr 2017 – May 2018 · 1 yr 1 mo

Engineering LeadershipScrumDockerPersonal DevelopmentAgile DevelopmentCoaching & Mentoring+2

Udacity

Full Stack Engineer

Jul 2016 – Mar 2017 · 8 mos · Bengaluru Area, India

Built backend applications using Javascript, Go, Ruby on Rails, and Python
Built frontend applications using React

ScrumDockerPersonal DevelopmentAgile DevelopmentStrategic ThinkingResearch Skills

Leaf technologies pvt. ltd.

Senior Software Engineer

Feb 2015 – Jun 2016 · 1 yr 4 mos · Mumbai, India

Worked with Javascript, Node.js, Express.JS, CouchDB, Embedded C, FreeRTOS, LWIP,
MQTT, 6LoWPAN, Linux-based SBCs.

ScrumDockerPersonal DevelopmentAgile DevelopmentStrategic ThinkingResearch Skills

Enthought

Software Developer

Jun 2012 – Dec 2014 · 2 yrs 6 mos · Mumbai Area, India

Briefly worked on Enthought Canopy
Currently working developing our backend applications and services and also managing our infrastructure
Worked on front-end development of Enthought Training on Demand

Engineering LeadershipScrumPersonal DevelopmentTeam ManagementCoaching & MentoringStrategic Thinking+1

Drupal association

2 roles

Google Summer of Code 2012 Intern

Promoted

Apr 2012 – Aug 2012 · 4 mos · Mumbai Area, India

Working at a 'Materialization Plugin for Views'
This project aimed to write a materialization plugin for Views. It creates a "materialized view" for a "view", and then materialize the results into temporary tables. And then, the following Views calls would be redirected to the materialized view. The changes would be made to the materialized view, when data in the view changes (or sometimes even drop the entire materialized view)

Personal DevelopmentStrategic ThinkingResearch Skills