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About Me

Rahul Raj

Strategic Leader & Technical Architect

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Executive Summary

Results-oriented Technologist with 12+ years of experience bridging the gap between complex technical delivery and business strategy. Expert in driving technical pre-sales, successfully developing winning proposals (RFPs) to secure and onboard 100+ enterprise clients across Azure and AWS. Instrumental in scaling the organization, growing the technical team from 5 to 40+ engineers and driving organizational revenue from 4 million to 20 million through strategic delivery and expansion.

4M → 20M Revenue Growth
40+ Engineers Scaled
100+ Enterprise Wins
Professional Experience

Director Technology & Innovation

Adfolks Software Trading LLC (Acquired by ZainTech) Sept 2023 - Present
Previously: Consultant Cloud/Data Services (Feb 2017 - Sept 2023)
Spearheaded the technical vision and practice growth that positioned Adfolks as a market leader, driving organizational revenue from 4M to 20M AED and directly contributing to the company's successful acquisition by ZainTech.

Key Responsibilities & Achievements

  • Practice Leadership: Founded and scaled four high-margin technical practices: App Modernization, Cloud Native Engineering, DevSecOps, and Managed Services.
  • Pre-Sales Strategy: Led the end-to-end RFP lifecycle, translating business requirements into winning technical proposals that secured 100+ enterprise clients.
  • Strategic Partnerships: Achieved Microsoft Gold Partner (5 Advanced Specializations) and AWS Advanced Partner status.
  • Innovation: Directed adoption of Kubernetes, Azure Sentinel, and Data Platforms to create new revenue streams.

Key Projects

  • Community Development Authority (Guinness Record): Architected a cloud platform handling 15,000 registrations and 5,000 concurrent users for a live event, achieving a Guinness World Record.
  • Majid Al Futtaim: Built a data platform ingesting 1 billion rows of Wi-Fi data in 3 months.
  • Dubai Airports: Designed a Multi-Cloud Landing Zone blueprint for secure website migration and Splunk dashboards for governance.
  • Expo 2020: Designed secure Landing Zones (Palo Alto & F5) and audited AWS environments for IAM security standards.

Consultant: Cloud Solutions

AppsIntegra April 2015 – Feb 2017
Joined as the sole technical consultant during the startup phase, establishing cloud capabilities and scaling the technical team from 1 to 7 members.

Key Contributions

  • Partnership Growth: Achieved AWS Advanced Partner Level through technical excellence and certifications.
  • Client Acquisition: Successfully onboarded 50+ customers including FlyDubai and Majid Al Futtaim.
  • FlyDubai & MAF: Created Cloud Landing Zone blueprints integrated with Sophos/Palo Alto firewalls.
  • Gov & Defense: Led SolarWinds monitoring implementations for Dubai Police, Presidential Guard Abu Dhabi, and Tawazun.

Associate Engineer

Marlabs Software March 2014 - April 2015
  • R&D Initiatives: Researched and implemented hybrid cloud architectures using OpenStack, CloudStack, and AWS.
  • Migration: Facilitated VMware to AWS migrations and Dockerized OpenStack components.
  • Award: Recognized as "Best Employee of the Month" (Sept 2014).

Technical Shift Manager

Hashroot Technologies Oct 2012 - Feb 2014
  • Rapid Promotion: Progressed from intern to Shift Manager within one year.
  • Security: Performed server hardening and cyber-attack investigations on Linux environments.
  • Leadership: Managed technical staff and quality audits to ensure strict SLA adherence.
Core Competencies
Practice Building (0-40+ Team) Azure & AWS Landing Zones Kubernetes (CKA) Azure Sentinel & Splunk Pre-Sales & RFP Management Multi-Cloud Architecture Platform Engineering Zero Trust (Palo Alto/F5) Infrastructure as Code Cost Optimization (FinOps)
Education & Certifications

Bachelor of Technology in Computer Science

NSS College of Engineering, Calicut University

Active Certifications

  • Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA)
  • Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert
  • Microsoft Certified: Azure Security Engineer Associate
  • Microsoft Certified: Azure Network Engineer Associate
  • Microsoft Certified Professional

Historical Credentials: Red Hat (RHCE/RHCSA), AWS Solutions Architect, Oracle Cloud Architect, VMware Certified Associate.

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