Arun Balakrishna BhatSENIOR PLATFORM ENGINEER

IDENTITY.SYS // LOADED

ROLE
Senior Platform Engineer
BASE
Udupi, India
STACK
Kafka · Debezium
Kubernetes · Terraform
FOCUS
Streaming & CDC pipelines
Platform reliability

SENIOR PLATFORM ENGINEER

ARUN
BALAKRISHNA
BHAT

Building the platforms
behind the data.

FROM AN IDEA TO A RUNNING PLATFORM
Code
Build
Deploy
Observe
SYSTEM ONLINEMODE BUILD & OPERATELOCATION IN / UDUPI
Explore my work Download my resume
arun@portfolio:~$ ./build-the-platform
01 / ABOUT

The engineer behind the platform.

I’m Arun Balakrishna Bhat, a senior platform engineer in Udupi, India. I design, build, and operate Kafka-based data pipelines and CDC platforms, with a focus on reliability, performance, and data quality. I automate infrastructure and help engineering teams move from ingestion to dependable data consumption.

Streaming & CDC pipelines

Production data ingestion with Kafka, Confluent, and Debezium. Connector lifecycle, throughput tuning, and reliable data movement for analytics and operational systems.

Kubernetes & GitOps

Kafka and Strimzi on Kubernetes and EKS. Helm, Kustomize, and Flux CD for deployments, with Terraform and Ansible for repeatable infrastructure.

Reliability & operations

Data-freshness monitoring, connector health, and centralized logging. On-call leadership, incident recovery, and root-cause analysis for production platforms.

Automation & integration

Python and shell automation, Temporal workflows, and custom Java transforms for Kafka Connect. Go tools that make everyday platform operations easier.

Ask me about CDC performance, Kafka Connect, GitOps, or keeping a streaming platform reliable in production.

IN PRACTICE

Where I’ve put it to work.

Full resume

2025 — Present

iHerb

Senior Platform Engineer

Operate Confluent Kafka and Strimzi clusters on Kubernetes, and build Debezium CDC pipelines for production data platforms.

  • Improved CDC throughput by approximately 60% through connector and task tuning.
  • Strengthened connector health and data-freshness monitoring; fixed a data-loss bug with a custom Java transform.
  • Manage GitOps deployments with Helm, Kustomize, and Flux CD, alongside Confluent Cloud capacity and cost planning.

2022 — 2025

Platformatory Labs

Data Engineer / Lead SRE

Built and operated streaming platforms for Jollibee Foods Corporation, Tata Digital, and MCX, spanning data integration, cloud migration, and SRE.

  • Collaborated with 40+ engineering teams on integrations for a centralized Kafka-based data hub.
  • Contributed to an Azure Event Hubs to Confluent Cloud migration with zero data loss and over 50% cost optimization.
  • Led six SREs supporting 24/7 Kafka operations, coordinating incident response, RCA, and Ansible-driven upgrades.
02 / SKILLS & TOOLKIT

From ingestion to reliable operations.

The tools I use to build data pipelines, automate infrastructure, and operate production platforms. Alongside the stack: data quality, performance tuning, capacity planning, and incident response.

01

Streaming & integration

Kafka Connect, CDC ingestion, connector tuning, Schema Registry, and workflow orchestration.

Apache Kafka
Debezium CDC
Strimzi
Temporal
02

Cloud & containers

Managed Kubernetes on EKS, Azure Event Hubs migrations, networking, storage, and production troubleshooting.

Kubernetes
AWS / EKS
Azure / Event Hubs
Docker
Docker Compose
Linux
03

Infrastructure & GitOps

Repeatable provisioning, GitOps deployments, configuration management, and controlled rolling upgrades.

Terraform
OpenTofu
Ansible
Helm
Kustomize
Flux CD
04

Code & data

Pipeline automation, operator tooling, shell scripts, and custom Java transforms for Kafka Connect.

Python
Go
Bash / Shell
Java
MySQL
MS SQL Server
05

Observability & reliability

Connector health, data-freshness alerts, centralized logging, P1/P2 incident response, and root-cause analysis.

Grafana
OpenSearch
ELK Stack
PagerDuty
Explore my resume and GitHub profile
03 / CERTIFICATIONS

Learning, put into practice.

CKA

Certified Kubernetes Administrator

The Linux Foundation

View credential
AZ-900

Microsoft Certified: Azure Fundamentals

Microsoft

View credential
CCDAK

Confluent Certified Developer for Apache Kafka

Confluent

View credential
DSE

Data Streaming Engineer Foundations

Confluent

View credential
04 / ACTIVITY

Small commits. Steady progress.

My public GitHub contributions and LeetCode practice, right here. The contribution calendars refresh every six hours when the scheduled build runs.

PUBLIC GITHUB ACTIVITY

GitHub contributions

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Recent public events

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PUBLIC LEETCODE ACTIVITY

Problem solving

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BUILT IN THE OPEN

Tools for real platform problems.

Kafka search, infrastructure sandboxes, latency profiling, and daily intelligence.

View selected work
05 / CONTACT

Let’s connect.

Have a platform problem to talk through, a tool to build, or an idea to share? My inbox is open.

GitHub LinkedIn LeetCode Email
arun.b.bhat@gmail.com

Udupi, India Platforms · Data · Tools