Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India

Sandhu
Santhakumar

Senior Technical Architect

I design distributed, cloud-native systems for enterprise products, most recently a data-as-a-service platform of 60+ microservices, and the review practices that keep them easy to change as teams grow.

Scroll or press → to walk the road from 2012 to now.Scroll down to walk the road from 2012 to now. Or skip to the latest role, skills, open source, writing or how to reach me.

Backwaters at dawn

2012May 2012 – Sep 2013

Software Trainer

E-Vision Labs

  • Delivered hands-on Java and web development training.
  • Designed structured curricula covering programming fundamentals.
  • Mentored aspiring developers through their first software projects.

Teaching taught me that clarity is earned. If I couldn't explain something simply, I didn't understand it deeply enough. That mindset still shapes every architecture decision I make.

Paddy fields

2013Sep 2013 – Apr 2017

Software Engineer

Xminds Infotech Pvt. Ltd.

  • Built backend services for enterprise applications.
  • Designed scalable relational databases for multi-tenant systems.
  • Improved maintainability through layered architecture and engineering best practices.

Building production software taught me that maintainability matters more than cleverness. Software isn't finished when it works—it's finished when others can confidently evolve it.

Kettuvallam on the backwaters

2017Apr 2017 – Mar 2022

Senior Software Engineer

Xminds Infotech Pvt. Ltd.

  • Led backend engineering across core product modules.
  • Introduced structured code review practices.
  • Mentored engineers and raised engineering standards across the team.

Great software isn't built by exceptional individuals—it's built by teams that share the same engineering standards. Mentoring became less about reviewing code and more about growing people.

Tea estates in the monsoon

2022Mar 2022 – Feb 2024

Technical Architect

Xminds Infotech Pvt. Ltd.

  • Designed scalable architectures for enterprise products.
  • Defined technical direction across multiple engineering teams.
  • Established architecture reviews that improved long-term consistency.

The biggest shift wasn't designing systems—it was designing decisions. Good architecture gives teams the guardrails to move quickly without repeating the same trade-offs.

Milestone

Chinese fishing nets

2024Feb 2024 – Present

Senior Technical Architect

Xminds Infotech Pvt. Ltd.

  • Architected a high-scale Data-as-a-Service platform.
  • Designed a distributed ecosystem of 60+ microservices.
  • Led cloud-native modernization initiatives.

Great architecture isn't about today's requirements—it's about making tomorrow's changes feel ordinary. When a system can grow without becoming harder to understand, the architecture has done its job.

Milestone

A chundan vallam, the snake boat

Milestones along the road

Credentials

Milestones along the road

The boatyard

What I build with

Cloud native
AWS · Azure · Google Cloud · Vercel · Cloudflare · Nginx · Docker · Kubernetes · Helm · Terraform · GitHub Actions · GitLab CI · Datadog · Prometheus · Grafana · New Relic
Distributed systems
Microservices · Event-Driven Architecture · CQRS · Saga Pattern · Kafka · RabbitMQ · Redpanda · GraphQL
Applied AI
OpenAI · Anthropic Claude · Google Gemini · Hugging Face · Ollama · LangChain · LangGraph · Model Context Protocol · RAG · Prompt Engineering · n8n · Make · AI Agents · Multi-Agent Systems · Pinecone · Qdrant · pgvector
Software architecture
System Architecture · Systems Design · Data Architecture · Domain-Driven Design · Technical Roadmapping · Platform Strategy · Architecture Reviews
Backend engineering
Java · Python · C# · TypeScript · GraalVM · Spring Boot · Node.js · FastAPI · Flask · PostgreSQL · MySQL · MS SQL Server · Redis · Elasticsearch · ClickHouse · Snowflake · BigQuery
Frontend engineering
React · Next.js · Tailwind CSS · WordPress · Strapi
Quality engineering
JUnit · Mockito · JMeter · Playwright · Selenium · BrowserStack · TestMU

A kettuvallam taking shape at the boatyard

The village well

Open source

pg-sse

Personal project · Python · Postgres · MIT licence

Live updates from the Postgres you already run, sent as server-sent events. No Redis, no broker, no WebSocket service. Starlette and FastAPI built in.

How it works
A table trigger sends NOTIFY with only a key; one listener per process wakes the open streams, and each re-reads from its own cursor. A notification never carries the data, so a lost one costs a delay, never an event.
Trade-offs
LISTEN needs a direct connection, not a transaction-mode pooler. Keeping ids in commit order serialises inserts per key. Limits and in-memory signals are per process.
All repositories on GitHub

A kinar, the open well the whole lane draws from

A resting stone by the road

Principles

  1. Make change inexpensive

    Requirements will change. Make decisions safe to revisit instead of expensive to undo.

  2. Design for observability

    Systems you can't observe are systems you can't confidently improve. Visibility comes before optimization.

  3. Automate the repeatable

    Automate repetitive work so engineers can focus on solving problems that require judgment, creativity, and experience.

  4. Measure before optimizing

    Measure first, optimize second. Solve the real bottleneck—not the one you assume exists.

  5. Prefer clarity over cleverness

    Clear systems are easier to understand, evolve, and maintain. Cleverness rarely ages well.

  6. Let complexity earn its place

    Complexity should solve proven problems, not hypothetical ones. Add it only when the system truly demands it.

Great architecture makes change feel ordinary.

A chumadu thangi, the stone rest by the road

The reading room

Writing

  • Prompts Are Code Now

    A one-line prompt change can break production without a single error. How to version, test and ship prompts like any other code.

    Mar 2026 · 7 min · Xminds Resources

  • Slashing LLM Costs with TOON

    Much of a large JSON payload is punctuation and repeated keys. Switching to TOON at the LLM boundary only cuts those tokens without changing the rest of the system.

    Jan 2026 · 9 min · Xminds Resources

  • Most UI Validation Doesn't Need Vision

    Why I switched from Playwright screenshots to agent-browser snapshots to cut LLM costs for structural UI checks.

    Draft, not yet published

The vayanasala, the village reading room

Over tea at the chaya kada

What people say

  • “...who designs solutions, runs POCs, writes and reviews code.”

    Fellow • Data Platform

  • “He consistently translated complex requirements into tangible solutions.”

    Senior DevOps Engineer • Cloud Infrastructure

  • “Sandhu is not just a leader but a mentor. His calm approach to solving complex problems inspires the team to deliver their best.”

    Lead Engineer • Data Platforms

  • “He effectively led a team of engineers.”

    Backend Lead Engineer • Platform Engineering

  • “An excellent coder with an exceptional mix of technical expertise, patience, and collaboration.”

    Lead DevOps Engineer • Multi-Cloud
All recommendations on LinkedIn

The chaya kada, where people talk

The lamp is on

Contact

Available for architecture consulting, AI platform strategy, and technical leadership.

contact@sandhu.sh

IST UTC+05:30 · Usually within 24 hours

— Sandhu

A nilavilakku lit at dusk, and the Kovalam lighthouse