Open · CTO · advisory · board
SIVASHANKAR THIYAGARAJAN
CHENNAI · INDIA · JUNE 2026 TECHNOLOGY LEADERSHIP DOSSIER

Inherit complexity. Build clarity. Deliver scale.

A technology leader who transforms platforms — and the organisations that run them. Twenty years turning legacy monoliths, greenfield businesses and 30-year platforms into modern, cloud-native systems, alongside the teams built to sustain them.

Sivashankar Thiyagarajan
CTO-track · Technology Transformation
Head of Engineering, VP · CAMS
20+ yrs · 325+ engineers led
Core Strengths
Technology Strategy Platform Modernisation Org & CoE Building Architecture & Design Authority Engineering Governance Global Stakeholder Management AI / Agentic Engineering
I.  The Pattern

Three ground-up organisations.

CAMS2024 — now
200
A 200-member org spanning Engineering, Data, DevSecOps & SRE — driving the AI-native rebuild of India's largest mutual fund RTA.
VP · Head of Engineering
Pine Labs2021 — 23
75
An online payments business built from scratch — ₹10 Cr to ₹4,000+ Cr GTV/month in under twelve months.
Director · Head of Online Payments
Freshworks2023 — 24
50
A 50-member modernisation squad: Ruby-on-Rails monolith re-platformed to Java microservices, in domain-driven units.
Director of Engineering
// the through-line

Each one inherited a different flavour of complexity. Each one shipped something the business hadn't been able to before. The work is the same shape every time — find the load-bearing walls, draw the new lines, hire the right hands, and move.


II.  Leadership Impact

What I'm accountable for.

01 — Transformation

Platform transformation at scale

Three major transformations — a 30-year RTA platform to cloud-native microservices, a SaaS monolith to enterprise microservices, and an offline business to a multi-channel digital platform — each delivering measurable scale and reliability gains.

CAMS · Freshworks · Pine Labs
02 — Organisation

Building organisations 0 → 1

Stood up three engineering organisations from the ground up — each with leadership layers, hiring-bar governance, domain-aligned squads, and an ownership-first culture that outlasts any single release.

200 · 75 · 50 members · 325+ led
03 — AI & Agentic

AI engineering in production

Embedded agentic development into enterprise engineering — API discovery over legacy systems, AI-driven code knowledge bases, agentic security testing — and founded a dedicated AI Centre of Excellence.

AI CoE · MCP · Vertex AI · LLM workflows
04 — Global

Global operating experience

Seven years inside PayPal's global engineering matrix and a year leading global-facing delivery at Freshworks — aligning India execution to global product and operations roadmaps across 15+ markets.

15+ markets · US · APAC · EU

III.  Track Record

Two decades, one trajectory.

2024 — now
Head of Engineering, VP CAMS
AI-native transformation of India's largest mutual-fund RTA. Founded the AI Centre of Excellence; introduced an architecture review board, API standards & DORA baseline across a 200-member org.
10M+ txn / day
2023 — 2024
Director of Engineering Freshworks
Core modernisation of Freshworks CRM — Ruby-on-Rails monolith to Java microservices. SPACE + AI-assisted test automation.
+40% release throughput
2021 — 2023
Director · Head of Online Payments Pine Labs (Plural)
Online payments business built from scratch. 75-member org from zero. Re-architected 10 TPS legacy stack to 1,000+ TPS-capable AWS platform.
₹4,000+ Cr GTV / mo
2014 — 2021
Sr. MTS · Tech Architecture Lead PayPal
Seven years across acquiring & issuing rails. Built the Payments Switch from scratch, tokenisation stack, direct Visa / Mastercard / Omnipay / CUP connectors.
2.5M txn / day · +50 bps
2013 — 2014
Senior Software Engineer Altimetrik
Led 10+ engineers on Subscriptions & Recurring Payments. Built an in-house Payment Simulator that eliminated vendor dependency.
10+ engineers
2011 — 2013
Senior Software Engineer Computer Sciences Corporation
PCI-DSS-compliant merchant payment gateway products. Reliability won via disciplined root-cause analysis.
PCI-DSS
2006 — 2011
IT Analyst → Analyst TCS · Bank of America
Built RTA and Clearing & Settlement systems for derivatives and equities. Led a six-member team. Automated reconciliation for institutional banking.
RTA roots

IV.  At Scale

The work, in numbers.

10M+ / day
Transactions under leadershipCAMS
₹4,000Cr GTV / mo
From ₹10 Cr in <12 monthsPine Labs
0M txn / day
Payments switch from scratchPayPal
0+ led
Engineers led, cumulatively200 · 75 · 50

Platforms under my leadership process ten million transactions a day — and most of that surface was built by a team that wasn't there a year before.

— On the work

V.  Operating Principles

How I lead.

i.
Lead from the front. Sit with the team for the architectural arguments — not just the review.
ii.
Help unblock the problem. Never opt for the managerial line to evade contribution.
iii.
Judge teams on intent, not on failures. Outcomes are an output of the culture you build.
iv.
Inherit complexity. Build clarity. Deliver scale.
v.
Agentic development is a core engineering practice — not a side experiment.
vi.
Hire for trajectory. Coach for taste. Promote for force-multiplication.

VI.  Currently

At CAMS.

Leading the AI-native transformation of India's largest mutual fund RTA — 10M+ transactions a day, on a platform that didn't have a microservice in it eighteen months ago.

VII.  Reach

Let's talk.

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Email
[email protected]
Phone
+91 89399 21254
LinkedIn
/sivashankar-thiyagarajan
Résumé
resume.pdf ⌘P