DevOps Engineer at Khyaal · Mumbai, India

I build cloud platforms that scale, ship and cost less.

Hi, I’m Raj — a DevOps engineer with 4+ years across Kubernetes, CI/CD and multi-cloud infrastructure on AWS and GCP. I started out writing backend APIs; today I run the platforms they live on.

Portrait of Raj Bokade
  • AWS
  • GCP
  • Kubernetes
  • Docker
  • Terraform
  • Helm
  • Argo CD
  • GitHub Actions
  • Jenkins
  • Karpenter
  • Prometheus
  • Grafana
  • SigNoz
  • Ansible
  • PostgreSQL
  • Agentic AI

Impact

Numbers I’m proud of.

Infrastructure work is often invisible. These are a few places where it showed up on the bill, the security report and the pager.

  • 44%

    lower monthly AWS spend

    Karpenter, Spot/On-Demand mix, right-sized node pools

  • 50%

    lower monthly GCP spend

    Optimised Kubernetes node pools and scheduling

  • ~100

    VAPT findings remediated

    Every Critical and High closed via IAM, network and SG hardening

  • 4+

    years in engineering

    Backend engineer turned DevOps engineer

Journey

From writing APIs to running the platforms they live on.

Two turning points shaped how I work today.

  1. Aug 2022

    Backend Engineer

    Crossasyst · Service-based

    Joined as a fresher, building Java, Spring Boot and gRPC APIs for a healthcare platform.

    • Java
    • Spring Boot
    • gRPC
  2. 2022 – 2023

    The dual role

    Crossasyst

    For ~10–11 months I shipped backend features and ran DevOps work side by side — deploying the same platform I was coding.

    • Backend
    • Kubernetes
    • Jenkins
  3. Mid 2023

    DevOps Engineer

    Crossasyst · US clients

    Went full-time DevOps: on-prem Kubernetes, GitOps with Argo CD, and migrating platforms to AWS for US clients.

    • AWS
    • Argo CD
    • Terraform
  4. Feb 2026Now

    DevOps Engineer

    Khyaal · Product-based

    Owning multi-cloud production infrastructure for a product I care about — cost, reliability, security and speed.

    • AWS
    • GCP
    • Karpenter

Turning point 01

Backend → DevOps

I started my career as a backend engineer writing APIs. But I was always passionate about the cloud and scaling — how code gets built, shipped, and how it holds up as traffic grows.

So when the chance to move into DevOps came up, I took it. For around 10–11 months I worked on both — backend tasks and DevOps tasks side by side — before moving fully into DevOps. It meant learning infrastructure while still feeling every developer pain point first-hand.

What it taught meKnowing how the app is built makes me a better platform engineer for the people building it.

Turning point 02

Service-based → Product-based

Working with US clients at a service company gave me real exposure — greenfield AWS builds, migrations, strict security requirements. Over time, though, the work settled into the same tickets and the same fixes, and I could feel my learning slow down.

At Khyaal, a product company, the platform feels like our own. I can suggest improvements based on where the market is going, explore new tech and actually put it into production — and see its impact on real users.

What it taught meI want to own outcomes, not just close tickets.

Experience

Where I’ve shipped things.

  1. Feb 2026 — Present

    Khyaal

    DevOps Engineer

    Product-basedMumbai, India

    • Reduced monthly cloud spend by 44% on AWS and 50% on GCP using Karpenter, Spot/On-Demand strategies and optimised Kubernetes node pools.
    • Automated end-to-end AWS/GCP CI/CD with GitHub Actions — integrating ECR, Argo CD, automated release notes and Slack production alerts to standardise deployments.
    • Remediated every Critical and High-risk finding across ~100 VAPT vulnerabilities through IAM, network and security-group hardening.
    • Implemented Prometheus, Grafana and CloudWatch alerting for pod, node, database and service failures with Slack notifications; introduced VPA to cut resource waste.
  2. Aug 2022 — Jan 2026

    Crossasyst

    Engineer — DevOps

    Service-basedMumbai, India

    • Built and managed on-premise Kubernetes infrastructure with Jenkins and Argo CD, including VPN access for secure remote connectivity across development teams.
    • Led the migration of an on-premise application platform to AWS, improving security, scalability and high availability across multiple environments.
    • Migrated the organisation’s source control from Bitbucket to GitHub within a single day for a high-priority initiative, keeping development workflows running throughout.
    • Started as a backend engineer — built Java, Spring Boot and gRPC APIs before moving fully into DevOps.

Projects

Platforms I’ve architected, migrated and run.

  • 01Khyaal

    Multi-Cloud Platform Engineering

    Production AWS and GCP infrastructure for Khyaal — a leading senior-citizen platform in India, now expanding to the US market.

    • Run and harden production workloads across two clouds.
    • Built a live dashboard for real-time product and user activity.
    • Cost, alerting and security baselines owned end to end.
    • AWS
    • GCP
    • Kubernetes
    • Karpenter
    • GitHub Actions
    • Argo CD
    • Prometheus
    • Grafana
  • 02US Insurance Platform

    Enterprise Cloud Infrastructure

    Greenfield AWS infrastructure for development, demo and production environments of a US insurance platform.

    • Architected EKS, RDS, ECR, S3, CloudFront, ACM, SES and CodeArtifact.
    • Migrated Jenkins builds to AWS CodeBuild.
    • Enabled secure Amazon Bedrock access so app teams could ship GenAI features.
    • AWS EKS
    • RDS
    • CloudFront
    • CodeBuild
    • Amazon Bedrock
    • Terraform
  • 03Healthcare Platform

    Backend Development & DevOps Enablement

    The project where my backend-to-DevOps journey began — I built the APIs, then deployed the platform they run on.

    • Developed Java, Spring Boot and gRPC APIs.
    • Deployed on on-premise Kubernetes with Jenkins, Helm and Argo CD.
    • Ran production PostgreSQL for the platform.
    • Java
    • Spring Boot
    • gRPC
    • Kubernetes
    • Helm
    • Jenkins
    • PostgreSQL

Skills

The toolbox.

From writing the service to running it in production — the tools I reach for every day.

  • 01

    Cloud

    • AWS
    • GCP
  • 02

    Containers & orchestration

    • Kubernetes
    • Docker
    • Helm
    • Karpenter
  • 03

    CI/CD & GitOps

    • GitHub Actions
    • Jenkins
    • Argo CD
    • AWS CodeBuild
  • 04

    Infrastructure as Code

    • Terraform
    • Ansible
  • 05

    Observability

    • Prometheus
    • Grafana
    • SigNoz
    • CloudWatch
  • 06

    Backend

    • Java
    • Spring Boot
    • Python
    • PostgreSQL
    • MongoDB
    • Temporal
  • 07

    AI in infrastructure

    • Agentic AI
    • AI agent workflows
    • Amazon Bedrock
  • 08

    Everyday tools

    • Linux
    • Git
    • Jira

Field Notes

What I’m learning, explained simply.

Case studies and learnings from DevOps and system design — what I understood, what could be better, how I’d apply it, and what I learned.

The first notes are being written.

Check back soon — DevOps and system design case studies and learnings are on the way.

Education & certifications

The foundations.

Highest education

Master of Computer Applications (MCA)

University of Mumbai

2020 — 2022

Certification

AWS Certified Solutions Architect — Associate

Amazon Web Services

Apr 2025 — Apr 2028Active

Contact

Let’s build something reliable.

Whether it’s a role, a platform problem or a system design conversation — my inbox is open.