Who I Am
Quick Facts
My name is Sri (Sritharan K). I have been living and working in Belgium for more than 25 years. I hold Belgian citizenship and I am fluent in English, Dutch, and Tamil, with conversational German.
I am a Lead Software Architect with over 17 years of experience driving architecture strategy, platform governance, and engineering leadership for enterprise clients. I define target architectures, establish engineering standards, and deliver phased technology roadmaps, translating business goals into actionable platform strategies and presenting architectural trade-offs to product and business leadership. My work spans the full architecture lifecycle: from system design and API strategy to Kubernetes deployment, observability, compliance controls, incident response, and continuous architectural improvement.
I take formal ownership of non-functional requirements (scalability, resilience, security posture, observability, cost optimization, and disaster recovery) as architectural deliverables, not afterthoughts. I have led platform modernization programs, driven legacy-to-cloud migrations with phased delivery strategies, and coached engineering teams to raise their architectural quality. I think in systems: clear domain boundaries, observable behavior, and production reliability are always top priorities, and I also speak the language of business: roadmap trade-offs, delivery risk, compliance, and growth enablement.
Key Achievements
Professional Journey
2008-2013: Foundation
My career started in 2008 with backend development and automation in telecom and enterprise environments. I learned early how to build systems that run reliably under real operational pressure: integrating legacy systems, processing business-critical data, and supporting production workloads that couldn't fail. This foundation taught me that good software isn't just about clean code; it's about understanding how systems behave when things go wrong.
2013-2018: Growth & Leadership
Over the next decade, I evolved from implementing backend components to architecting full platforms. I moved into service-oriented architectures, event-driven workflows, and integration-heavy systems, gradually taking ownership of architectural decisions, API contracts, and system design, moving from implementing components to designing the systems those components lived in. I led teams, mentored engineers, and learned that software architecture is about building systems that survive team changes, scale with the business, and remain maintainable under pressure.
2018-Present: Lead Software Architecture
Today, I define architecture strategy and platform governance for enterprise clients across SaaS, IoT, ERP, and commerce. I lead from the top of the architecture lifecycle: establishing target architectures, driving technology selection decisions, owning architectural reviews, and aligning engineering roadmaps with business growth and compliance requirements. Beyond technical ownership, I partner with product and business leadership to translate commercial goals into phased platform strategies, balancing delivery velocity, cost, risk, and long-term maintainability. I coach and mentor engineering teams, drive platform modernization programs, and make architectural decisions grounded in production data, SLOs, and real operational experience.
Core Expertise
Core Expertise
Primary technologies I work with daily
- Python (Django, DRF, Flask, FastAPI)
- SQLAlchemy, Alembic, Pydantic
- Kubernetes, Docker, Helm, Kustomize
- Terraform, Ansible, Pulumi, IaC
- Linux (Ubuntu, CentOS, Debian, Bash)
- AWS, Azure, Google Cloud
- PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Redis, DynamoDB
- Microservices & Domain-Driven Design
- CI/CD (GitLab CI, GitHub Actions, ArgoCD)
- REST, GraphQL, gRPC, SOAP, XML-RPC
- Nginx, Traefik, HAProxy, Load Balancing
- Prometheus, Grafana, OpenTelemetry, Jaeger
- AI/ML (LangChain, TensorFlow, PyTorch)
- Poetry, pip-tools, uv (Dependency Management)
Backend & Data
- Node.js, PHP (Laravel, CodeIgniter), Java
- Kafka, RabbitMQ, Celery, Celery Beat, MQTT
- Event-Driven & Message-Driven Architecture
- ETL & Data Pipelines
- Apache Airflow, Prefect
- ElasticSearch, TimescaleDB, InfluxDB, ClickHouse
- Redis Streams, Redis Pub/Sub
- SQL Query Optimization, Indexing, Partitioning
- Database Replication & Sharding
- WebSockets, Server-Sent Events, Real-time Systems
- SOAP, EDI, XML-RPC Integrations
- Soda Core (Data Quality Testing)
- Sentry, Error Tracking & Alerting
Cloud & Infrastructure
- EKS, GKE, AKS (Managed Kubernetes)
- Serverless (AWS Lambda, API Gateway, EventBridge)
- ArgoCD, Flux (GitOps Deployments)
- Istio, Linkerd (Service Mesh, mTLS)
- Multi-region & Multi-zone Deployments
- OpenTelemetry, Distributed Tracing
- Cloudflare, CDN, WAF, DDoS Protection
- Blue-Green, Canary, Rolling Deployments
- Horizontal Pod Autoscaling (HPA, KEDA)
- Cert-Manager, Let's Encrypt, TLS Automation
- HashiCorp Vault, AWS Secrets Manager
- Disaster Recovery & Backup Strategies
AI & Automation
- OpenAI API, Anthropic Claude, GPT Integration
- Ollama (Local LLM Deployment)
- LangChain, LangGraph, LlamaIndex
- Vector Databases (Pinecone, Weaviate, Qdrant)
- RAG & Semantic Search Pipelines
- HuggingFace Models & Transformers
- MCP (Model Context Protocol)
- Prompt Engineering & Chain-of-Thought
- AI-Assisted Code & Workflow Automation
Frontend
- React, Next.js, Vue.js, Angular
- TypeScript, JavaScript (ES2022+)
- TailwindCSS, shadcn/ui, Radix UI
- React Native (Cross-platform Mobile)
- Vite, Webpack, ESBuild
- Redux, Zustand, React Query
- REST & GraphQL API Integration
Specializations
- Odoo ERP (Certified) — ORM, XML-RPC, Custom Modules
- IoT & Edge Computing (MQTT, AWS IoT, AMQP)
- Payment Systems (Stripe, Mollie, Idempotency, PCI)
- OAuth2, JWT, OIDC, API Security
- SSL/TLS, mTLS, Secrets & Key Management
- OWASP Top 10, Security Hardening
- GDPR, DPIA, Audit Trails & Compliance
- SLO/SLA Design & Error Budget Management
- Multi-tenancy Architecture Patterns
- Webhook Design, Retry Logic & Dead-letter Queues
- pytest, Hypothesis, k6, Locust (Testing & Load)
- OpenAPI/Swagger, AsyncAPI, Postman
- Conventional Commits, Semantic Versioning
- Domain & Hosting Management (WHM, WHMCS, DNS)
Industry Experience
Engineering Philosophy
I believe reliable systems are built through disciplined engineering, operational ownership, and pragmatic architecture decisions. My approach is grounded in:
- Designing systems for production from day one: observability, monitoring, and failure modes are not afterthoughts
- Writing maintainable code that survives team changes and scales with the business
- Building platforms that solve real problems simply, avoiding unnecessary abstraction and over-engineering
- Owning the full lifecycle: from architecture and implementation to deployment, monitoring, and incident response
- Automating repetitive operational work so teams can focus on delivering business value
- Treating infrastructure, CI/CD, and security as core engineering responsibilities, not separate concerns
- Making data-driven decisions using metrics, SLOs, and production feedback loops
- Mentoring engineers and raising technical standards through code review, documentation, and knowledge sharing
- Choosing proven, stable technology over hype: reliability beats novelty in production systems
Availability & Preferences
Open to
Full-time, Contract, Consulting
Location
Belgium (Mol) | Remote work possible
Start Date
Immediately available
Let's Work Together
I am open to permanent positions, long-term contracts, and consulting engagements. Whether that means joining an engineering team full-time, stepping in as a technical leader for a complex initiative, or advising on architecture decisions, I would love to hear about what you are building. If it requires thoughtful engineering and clean design, let's talk.