Professional Profile
Viren Baraiya is the Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Orkes, based in the San Francisco Bay Area, and has held this position since October 2021. Orkes specializes in providing a cloud-delivered SaaS platform that enables developers to build resilient, stateful, and durable applications at scale, focusing on workflow orchestration and durable execution in cloud environments. Viren plays a critical role in leading Orkes’ core engineering efforts and strategic technological advancements with an emphasis on durable computing, scalability, and developer-focused infrastructure products.
Viren is a highly accomplished engineering leader with over 27 years of industry experience, noted for being a hands-on technologist and developer evangelist. His deep technical expertise lies in distributed systems, cloud infrastructure, machine learning, and enterprise security. He combines a wide-ranging programming skill set including major languages and frameworks and brings proficiency in building scalable infrastructure designed to have a multiplier effect on developer productivity.
Key Achievements and Contributions
- Creator and Co-Creator of Netflix Conductor: Viren led the development of Netflix Conductor, a highly scalable, cloud-native orchestration engine widely adopted for managing complex workflows. This product laid the foundation for Orkes, which is evolving the concepts of durable execution pioneered at Netflix.
- Engineering Leadership at Google (2018–2022): Viren led teams responsible for Firebase Predictions, empowering app developers to leverage Google’s machine learning infrastructure to tailor user experiences through predicted user segmentation. This work involved large-scale machine learning applications and cloud migration strategies.
- Enterprise Security Innovations: Developed Netflix’s first role-based access control (RBAC) system and owned single sign-on (SSO) integrations for McGraw-Hill Higher Education, underscoring expertise in secure enterprise systems.
- Extensive Experience Managing Geographically Distributed Teams: Demonstrates capability in steering large, global engineering teams, aligning technical strategy with operational execution.
Professional Background
- Orkes (2021–Present): Co-Founder & CTO, driving product architecture, cloud infrastructure, and overall technology strategy for a modern SaaS orchestration platform tailored for developers.
- Google (2018–2022): Engineering Leader for Firebase Predictions, contributing to machine learning and cloud-based product innovation at internet scale.
- Netflix (2015–2018): Senior Software Architect and Engineering Manager, responsible for building scalable cloud-native systems including Conductor.
- Goldman Sachs (2010–2015): Vice President/Engineering Manager, managing finance-related software engineering teams.
- McGraw-Hill Companies (2007–2010): Lead Software Engineer, focusing on enterprise software and security solutions.
Viren also holds previous technical roles at Patni Computers, CrimsonLogic Singapore, Novacitynets Singapore, Scandent Group Singapore, and Larsen & Toubro, establishing a diverse technology foundation across multiple geographies and industries.
Technical Skills and Expertise
- Core Areas: Distributed Systems, Cloud Computing, Durable Computing, Scalable Infrastructure, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Machine Learning, Infrastructure Engineering, Workflow Orchestration, Security (RBAC, SSO).
- Programming & Frameworks: Extensive knowledge of Java, Java Enterprise Edition, Agile Methodologies, RESTful Architectures, Microservices, Git, SQL, Spring Framework, Redis.
- Cloud & Infrastructure: Amazon Web Services (AWS), private and public cloud migrations, event-driven architecture.
- Additional Competencies: Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC), software design patterns, project & engineering management, developer tools evangelism.
Community Engagement and Industry Presence
Viren is an active speaker and contributor in the developer ecosystem and is scheduled to speak at industry events such as QCon San Francisco 2024 and DeveloperWeek CloudX 2023. He participates in technical interviews and discussions that highlight the evolution of durable execution, developer productivity tools, and cloud-native orchestration.
He has been featured in interviews and articles emphasizing Orkes’ distinctive approach to durable execution, improved metrics visualization, and dependency monitoring that differentiate it from existing technologies such as Temporal Technologies. Viren embraces open-source initiatives and has a reputation for sharing best practices within the evolving cloud-native and distributed systems domains.
Contact and Networking
- Verified Email and Phone: Available via professional networks
- Location: San Francisco Bay Area
Viren is actively recruiting senior distributed software engineers to help expand Orkes’ platform capabilities and developer community engagement.
This report consolidates Viren Baraiya’s extensive leadership, engineering expertise, and current key role in driving Orkes as a leading cloud orchestration SaaS solution, highlighting the technological and strategic value he brings to the development ecosystem.
