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ShunmugavelDirector of Engineering

Open to Senior Director / VP of Engineering

Shunmugavel Mariappan

Applied AI · Enterprise SaaS · Cloud Platforms

I scale engineering organizations that ship AI and platforms with P&L impact.

Leading Built To Order AI businesses and agentic engineering systems — with measurable P&L outcomes.

+$28M

Net-new ARR added

40%

Operating income (AI Built To Order)

Org growth (5 → 30 eng)

92%

Talent retention

20,000+

Technicians AI-automated

Leadership narrative

Engineering leader with 19 years building and scaling SaaS platforms and the organizations behind them. Shipped a production ML scheduling system for 20,000+ field technicians at Verizon — years before AI was a boardroom priority — then scaled a Trimble cloud platform team 6× (5 → 30 engineers) while adding $28M in net-new ARR. Most recently launched a Built To Order AI business from 0→1 — 5 paying enterprise customers at 40% operating income — delivering custom AI solutions as a new high-margin revenue line. Known for turning customer commitments into shipped product, retaining top talent (92%), and embedding AI into how teams build, not just what they build.

Title is Engineering Director; operating scope has consistently exceeded that band — India Engineering Council representative for 500+ engineers for more than 6 years, leading a Trimble India–level high-performance culture initiative, author of org-wide engineering playbooks, and P&L partner on a $50M ARR portfolio. Functioning at Senior Director / VP scope for more than a year.

Looking to lead a software engineering organization for an enterprise SaaS business operating at scale — Director, Senior Director, or VP of Engineering roles in Enterprise SaaS, AI/ML platforms, or logistics & supply chain technology.

Selected outcomes

Proof points a hiring leader can verify against the CV — business results, not activity lists.

Trimble

Built To Order AI business, 0→1

5 paying enterprise customers at 40% operating income

Authored the business model and partnered with Sales on go-to-market to deliver custom AI solutions — establishing a new high-margin revenue line within the Applied AI portfolio. Stood up the Built To Order entity with org design, financial model, and operational playbook in a 30-day 0→1 transition.

Trimble

Platform & product lines that moved the P&L

+$28M net-new ARR ($22M → $50M)

Launched two new product lines in transportation & supply chain and expanded enterprise adoption of the Forestry Industry Cloud — partnering with Product and Business as a P&L co-owner. Built the Forestry Industry Cloud from zero to cross-org adoption across four product lines with API standards, multi-tenant architecture, and AI/agentic-ready data workflows.

Verizon

Production ML for field operations

20,000+ technicians · automation 34% → 80%

Built and shipped a production ML dispatch system optimizing 50,000 daily jobs — cutting manual scheduling time 30%, years before ML became mainstream in operations.

More proof points

  • GenAI productivity

    ~65% less test-case effort · ~75% less release-notes effort

  • Cloud economics

    97% AWS efficiency · material annual FinOps savings

  • Release transformation

    Quarterly cycles → sprint-end production deploys

  • Playbooks at scale

    Engineering & AI-in-QA standards for 500+ engineers

  • High-performance culture

    Trimble India–level initiative · outcome-driven operating model

  • Engagement

    +11 Glint points · Pulse 80+

  • India Engineering Council

    500+ engineers · representative for 6+ years

  • Community

    BCDC · GDG Chennai · BeSA-AWS · CTO Talks · AWS UG Chennai

Global engineering journey across India, US, and EU markets
Global engineering journey

Innovation culture

3× consecutive Trimble Innovation Premier League champion

2023–2025 · Overall Excellence · Deep Tech

Led the team to three back-to-back victories in the Innovation Premier League (IPL) / Trimble India Hackathon — proof that innovation is a habit, not an event.

  • Innovation sandboxes and competitive experimentation as operating practice
  • 300+ technical knowledge-base articles
  • 100+ annual cross-project brown-bag sessions
With the Innovation Premier League (IPL) winner cup
IPL winner cup
Gallery of Trimble Innovation Premier League trophies and awards
Trimble award collection

AI, platforms & engineering excellence

Production AI, Built To Order delivery, and FinOps-backed platforms — tied to measurable business value.

AI as a business multiplier

  • Verizon: ML dispatch for 20,000+ technicians — automation 34% → 80%
  • Trimble: AI-assisted engineering — ~40% delivery velocity lift; ~65% reduction in test-case generation effort
  • Agentic workflows beyond chat: LangGraph, n8n, vector DBs, agentic-ready APIs

Built To Order AI delivery

  • Bridge bespoke enterprise quality with platform speed
  • 0→1 Built To Order business: org blueprint, financial model, Sales GTM partnership
  • 5 paying customers at 40% operating income — high-margin Applied AI revenue line

Cloud, FinOps & engineering excellence

  • Multi-cloud (AWS · Azure · GCP) with FinOps discipline — 97% AWS cost-efficiency rating
  • AI-in-QA playbook, QA Nexus dashboard, SPACE & DORA instrumentation
  • Internal Tech Radar with ~40% org adoption — Stay Curious as the technical North Star
Tech Radar 2025 — Stay Curious strategic roadmap
Tech Radar 2025 — Stay Curious
Value delivery framework aligning microservices, AI/ML, DORA and SPACE metrics
Value delivery framework

How I lead

Org design, culture, and succession — the operating system behind the metrics.

Three-level culture framework for long-term retention and excellence
High-performance culture framework

High-performance culture — Trimble India

Leading a Trimble India–level high-performance culture initiative: shifting from task-based management to an outcome-driven operating model across the engineering organization — 3Ps (Purpose, Priority, Partnerships), psychological safety, and measurable engagement (Pulse 80+, +11 Glint).

Single-Threaded Ownership

Modular org design: clear missions, decoupled dependencies, radical autonomy for product suites — higher velocity, less friction. Mentors Future Women in Leadership (FWL).

India Engineering Council — 6+ years

Segment representative for 500+ engineers for more than 6 years — driving strategic alignment between regional talent and global product roadmaps, plus org-wide standards for architecture, AI adoption, and developer experience.

Experience

Engineering Director — Applied AI, Cloud Platform & Transportation SaaS

Trimble Inc. · Chennai, India

Oct 2018 – Present

$5B-revenue global enterprise SaaS leader (construction, transportation, agriculture), 150+ countries

Lead a 30-engineer organization through 2 engineering managers and 3 staff engineers; partner on the $50M ARR P&L with Product and Business; report to the Sr. Director & Global VP of Engineering.

  • Launched a Built To Order AI business 0→1 — 5 paying enterprise customers at 40% operating income.
  • Drove $28M in net-new ARR ($22M → $50M) by launching two new product lines and expanding Forestry Industry Cloud adoption.
  • Built the Forestry Industry Cloud from zero to cross-org adoption across four product lines — API standards, multi-tenant architecture, AI/agentic-ready workflows.
  • Scaled the org 6× (5 → 30 engineers) with 92% retention using single-threaded ownership.
  • Leading a Trimble India–level high-performance culture initiative — outcome-driven operating model, 3Ps governance, and sustained engagement (Pulse 80+, +11 Glint).
  • Improved delivery velocity 40% by embedding AI-assisted engineering into the standard sprint cadence.
  • Cut release cycle time 25% through platform modernization and CI/CD / DevSecOps investment.
  • India Engineering Council representative for 500+ engineers for more than 6 years; drove org-wide standards for architecture, AI adoption, and developer experience.

Technical Manager — AI/ML & Dispatch Automation

Verizon · Chennai, India

Dec 2006 – Oct 2018

Fortune 500 #13 · $134B revenue · largest US telecom

Led a 70+ person engineering organization spanning direct reports and vendor (SOW) teams; delivered high-availability, data-intensive dispatch platforms end to end.

  • Shipped a production ML dispatch system for 20,000+ field technicians and 50,000 daily jobs — lifting scheduling automation from 34% to 80% and cutting manual scheduling time 30%.
  • Delivered 5 web applications and 1 mobile app from concept to launch, automating core field-operations workflows.
  • Advanced through 4 promotions in 12 years to Technical Manager; selected for the Verizon Leadership Pipeline.

Technical depth

Credible technical fluency for AI, platforms, and multi-cloud — not a junior skills dump.

Applied AI & GenAI
LLMs (GPT, Claude, Gemini, Llama) · RAG · Prompt Engineering · Fine-tuning · LangChain · LangGraph · Agentic AI (n8n) · Vector DBs (Pinecone) · Model Context Protocol (MCP)
AI Engineering & MLOps
Production ML · Model Evaluation & Guardrails · MLflow · Model Serving · AI-Assisted Development (Cursor, GitHub Copilot) · Streamlit
Architecture
Microservices · Distributed & Event-Driven Systems · Multi-Tenant SaaS · Mobile
Languages
Java / Spring Boot · Python · C# · JavaScript / Angular
Cloud & Platform
AWS · Azure · GCP (Multi-Cloud Certified) · Kubernetes · Docker · Terraform · CI/CD · DevSecOps · FinOps
Data
Kafka · PostgreSQL · MongoDB · Event Streaming Pipelines

Credibility

  • 3× Trimble Innovation Premier League / India Hackathon champion (2023–2025)
  • Verizon Leadership Pipeline
  • Trimble Leadership Circles
  • AMCHAM Global Leadership / NextGen Leadership
  • India Engineering Council Representative (500+ engineers) — 6+ years

Cloud certifications

AWS Certified Solutions Architect · Azure Fundamentals · Google Cloud Digital Leader

Education

Master of Computer Applications (MCA)

Periyar University, Tamil Nadu

Let’s talk about your next engineering chapter.

Chennai, India. Open to Bengaluru / Hyderabad / Pune · Open to relocation. Collaborate across US, Canada, Finland, and New Zealand time zones. Available for Senior Director and VP of Engineering conversations in enterprise SaaS, applied AI, and cloud platforms.