Prakash Athi

About Prakash Athi

As an accomplished IT product leader and QA expert, my passion lies around helping companies clarify their product vision/strategy and manage the complex end-to-end steps needed to bring effective IT solutions to lifeTo date, my roles have encompassed a vast range of design, development, and quality assurance work for complex enterprise IT systems - including the incorporation of cutting-edge testing methodologies to dramatically reduce defect levels and associated costs. On top of this, I\'ve held direct product ownership for top flagship products where I\'ve held responsibility for all cradle-to-grave product planning, strategy, lifecycle management, and customer experience functions. In terms of industry breadth, my work to date spans a wide range of industry sectors including Enterprise Software, Telecommunications, Banking, Retail, Consulting, and Legal. Regardless of the environment, I am forever asking “How can we make this process, product, or system even better?\" and am serving as a fierce advocate of the end customer, given that UX considerations are the ultimate make/break point when it comes to customer satisfaction and loyalty. Additional areas of expertise include:• Enterprise-level product ownership, design, development, and management• Product portfolio strategy, roadmap development, and lifecycle decision-making• SDLC management for initial requirements gathering to final design, testing, and release• Cutting-edge software testing and quality assurance implementation• Technical team recruiting, interviewing, hiring, and supervision• Test automation, operations management, process improvement, and best practices• Offshoring and outsourcing management including SOW, MSA, and KPI parameter negotiation• Agile/scrum leadership, user story development, backlog grooming, and prioritization• Customer experience, UX, and customer advocacy (voice of the customer) researchOpen to all relevant conversations at a••••••••@gmail.com!

Experience

1. Devops Manager

   SanMar

   Jun 2018 — Present · Issaquah, WA, US

   Currently, lead a team of 110+ Devops resources responsible for ensuring the software delivery of all SanMar systems.• Built the new QA team from the ground up, recruiting 100+ staff and providing the daily leadership, coaching, mentoring, and career development support to maximize employee engagement and retention rates• Transformed the Devops practice at SanMar, establishing an extensive range of new processes, best practices, and documentation methods to improve IT development speed, accuracy, cost-efficiency, and throughput• Implemented a more robust, flexible automation framework to automate integration testing between multiple SanMar systems—leading to a reduction in test execution effort by 50%• Drove the implementation for SanMar’s new ERP system • Oversaw software quality assurance for dozens of complex IT projects—designing and executing test plans, building and maintaining a test automation suite, and creating regression suites • Collaborate with project management, DevOps leaders, and other internal team members to clarify project needs, assign resources, set appropriate expectations, and ensure time-sensitive project delivery• Aligned the QA department with DevOps team continuous delivery and agile development approaches

Education

• PSG College of Technology

  BE, Electrical, Electronics and Communications Engineering

  1996 — 2000

• Oklahoma State University

  MS, Electrical and Computer Engineering

  2002 — 2004