Girija Balachandran
Fremont,CA
Summary
Seasoned Engineering Manager with over 18 years of progressive experience in the technology industry. Demonstrated success in leading and developing high-performing engineering teams. Proven ability to drive innovation, optimize processes, and deliver exceptional results.
Overview
18
18
years of professional experience
Work History
Engineering Manager/TPM
Expedia Group
2022.04 - 2024.08
- Held dual roles as EM and TPM.
- Collaborated with the engineering team, product, design, and analytics teams to drive the delivery of product features within the expected timeline.
- Created and updated project plans and timelines, identifying and managing dependencies and risks.
- Communicating team progress and updates to stakeholders.
- Facilitated team retrospective to identify gaps and improve process.
- Spearheaded data-driven strategies that resulted in a 31% increase in mobile app downloads for Expedia, Hotels.com, and Vrbo apps.
- Delivered 31% YoY app install growth, reaching 18M installs in 2023 via strategic partnerships with product.
- Drove significant growth in web and app share, yielding 1 million additional installs and $11 million annualized gross profit in 2024.
- Directed the engineering team in building new in-app banners designed to encourage app downloads.
- Drive engineering initiatives in line with company strategy.
Android Developer
Expedia Group
2016.10 - 2022.04
- Build complex app features using Kotlin and other supporting technologies for Expedia app's Trips experience.
- Collaborated with Product, Designers, Developers and Analytics team for seamless delivery of features
- Mentored junior Android developers and interns to ensure future success within the company and industry.
- Led multiple customer-facing projects, coordinated with fellow android developers to ensure best practices are developed and maintained across large codebase.
Software Development Engineer in Test
Expedia Group
2012.05 - 2016.09
- Led automation of API tests, Mobile Web tests and Android UI tests using Cucumber framework, Selenium Web Driver/Appium and Espresso framework.
Quality Assurance Engineer
Electronic Arts | Novellus Systems (LAM research)
2006.06 - 2012.04
- Developed tests in JUnit, TestNG for all product features and to increase automated test coverage.
Education
Bachelor of Engineering - Computer Science
Visvesvaraya Technical University
Bangalore, India2006-06
Skills
Leadership:
- Fostering a Culture of Trust and Transparency
- Coaching and guiding team members with their professional and technical development.
- Building highly collaborative and inclusive team culture.
- Empowering team members to make decisions.
Technical:
- Java, Kotlin, GraphQL,
- Datadog, Splunk, Grafana, Spring, AWS
- Git, IntelliJ IDEA, Eclipse, CI/CD, Tableau
- API testing, Appium, Selenium web driver, JUnit, TestNG, Cucumber, Espresso.
Timeline
Engineering Manager/TPM
Expedia Group
2022.04 - 2024.08
Android Developer
Expedia Group
2016.10 - 2022.04
Software Development Engineer in Test
Expedia Group
2012.05 - 2016.09
Quality Assurance Engineer
Electronic Arts | Novellus Systems (LAM research)
2006.06 - 2012.04
Bachelor of Engineering - Computer Science
Visvesvaraya Technical University
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