VenkateshKumar Chinnakaliappan
Fidelity Investments
Raleigh,NC
15
years of professional experience
Detail-oriented Cybersecurity Engineer with 15 years of experience securing enterprise platforms and multi-cloud environments. Expertise in gateway security, token-based identity systems, and policy engineering. Skilled in Axway Gateway, Envoy-based platforms, AWS, and Kubernetes. Strengthens cyber defenses through platform hardening, incident response, and risk mitigation, delivering secure solutions that protect critical applications and enhance organizational cybersecurity.
Work History
Principal System Engineer Enterprise Cybersecurity squad
1 Year 1 Month- Lead engineering support for Fidelity’s enterprise authentication platform powered by Axway API Gateway, securing both internal and external customer traffic. Maintained the token minting infrastructure used across multiple business applications and enforced enterprise-wide authentication and authorization controls.
- Manage and optimize Axway Gateway for secure, scalable, and highly available authentication services.
- Design and maintain gateway security policies governing customer and application traffic.
- Support token lifecycle management and identity validation across enterprise systems.
- Use Splunk, Kibana, and Datadog for anomaly detection, incident troubleshooting, and operational visibility.
- Lead product upgrades, OS patching, platform modernization, and infrastructure enhancements.
- Ensure timely completion of mandatory security patches and compliance requirements.
- Supported customer onboarding and resolved production issues, service requests, and critical incidents to ensure seamless operational continuity.
- Drove resiliency improvements through system hardening, performance tuning, and enhancing disaster recovery readiness across the platform.
- Environment: Axway API Gateway, Cassandra, RHEL 8.0, Datadog, Splunk, Kibana, Grafana.
Senior System Engineer (IWS Apache web application & API Platform management)
1 Year 7 Months- Supported Fidelity’s business-critical Envoy-based API platform deployed across AWS, Azure, and Rancher-managed Kubernetes environments.
- Lead EC2 → EKS workload migration initiatives.
- Managed certificate lifecycle and rotated privileged service accounts to enhance security posture.
- Automate infrastructure provisioning using Terraform and CloudFormation.
- Govern application resiliency and security across distributed gateway environments.
- Built observability frameworks and optimized platform performance to ensure operational reliability.
- Build observability frameworks and optimize platform performance.
- Conduct FinOps reviews and implement cloud scalability strategies.
- Migrated Apache-based applications to containerized workloads on EKS, improving deployment flexibility.
- Environment: AWS EKS, Azure AKS, Rancher Kubernetes (On-prem) RHEL 7.9.
System Engineer (API & Network security squad)
4 Months- Provided technical support for a high-impact enterprise authentication platform powered by the Axway API Gateway, facilitating secure inbound traffic authentication for both internal and external clients.
- Developed and maintained Axway Gateway policies with JavaScript and Groovy to ensure secure and efficient API traffic management.
- Managed SSL/TLS certificates and Venafi integrations.
- Utilized F5 GTM/LTM for traffic distribution and failover.
- Built monitoring dashboards with Datadog, Splunk, and Kibana to enhance visibility into system performance and security incidents.
- Built monitoring dashboards using Datadog, Splunk, and Kibana.
- Executed product upgrades and server patching while maintaining operational documentation to ensure system reliability and compliance.
- Performed API validation using Postman and Insomnia.
- Environment: RHEL 7.9 & 8.8, JRE 1.8, Cassandra 2.2, OpenSSL 3.0.7, Axway version 7.7.2.
Technical Lead
7 Months- Java/Spring Boot Engineering & API Security
- Managed CI/CD using Bitbucket, SVN, uBuild, uDeploy, and Jenkins.
- Led incident management, SLA governance, and automation initiatives.
- Enhanced microservices and secured them via Axway API Gateway.
- Led incident management, ensured SLA compliance, and implemented automation initiatives to streamline processes.
- Developed RESTful services using Spring Boot and integrated with Oracle DB2.
- Managed Axway API Gateway platform operations.
- Onboarded 4000+ APIs across multiple environments, enhancing integration and accessibility.
- APIGEE development and support (APIGEE Edge and X)
- Migrated APIGEE Edge → APIGEE X.
- Supported Azure APIM migration efforts.
- Gateway platform migration support (On premises to cloud):
- Impact analysis and migration planning by coordinating with design/planning and migration teams.
- Performed DR exercises, certificate updates, version upgrades, and policy customization.
- Developed customized Java program to generate the template out of APIGEE which is used as input in Azure Terraform.
- Created AD groups and onboarding groups/roles in SailPoint for access provisioning.
- Coordinated with Azure APIM migration team to successfully onboard sample services from Axway gateway and APIGEE into Azure API.
- Ensured all mandatory technical/functional information is provided to support migration team.
- Ensured coordination with migration team to validate the applications after migration in all environments.
Senior system analyst
2 Years 5 Months- Provided end-to-end support for Axway API Gateway across multiple environments to ensure system reliability.
- Executed certificate updates, SPS upgrades, and patching to maintain system security and performance.
- Delivered automation using Spring Boot Cron jobs.
- Managed release planning, incident resolution, and stakeholder communication.
- Coordinated release planning, incident resolution, and stakeholder communication to align project objectives.
- Environment: JDK 1.8, Java, Spring boot, Red Hat Linux, Oracle DB, uDeploy, Bitbucket, Splunk, SoapUI.
System Analyst
3 Years- Integrated and customized Axway API Gateway for healthcare clients, enhancing API security and performance.
- Onboarded thousands of APIs using API Manager, Portal, and Policy Studio.
- Developed comprehensive authentication, authorization, SSL/TLS, JWT, and logging policies to safeguard API transactions.
- Performed DR exercises, certificate renewals, and version upgrades.
- Supported disaster recovery activities, ensuring seamless operation of APIGW system during potential disruptions.
Associate
6 Years- Designed, developed, and tested multiple web services.
- Led troubleshooting and diagnostics to enhance system reliability and performance tuning for optimal operation.
- Led troubleshooting, diagnostics, and performance tuning.
- Built automation scripts in Java to streamline processes and reduce manual effort.
- Delivered detailed operational reports to inform leadership on system performance and operational status.
Education
Master Of technology (M.Tech) - Energy & Environmental Engg
M.Sc - Chemistry
B.Sc - Chemistry
Skills
API gateways
API management: Axway
Envoy
APIGEE
Azure APIM
Cloud: AWS
Azure
Languages: Java
J2EE
JavaScript
Groovy
Terraform automation
Databases: Oracle
Cassandra
SQL
PL/SQL
Tools: Jenkins
GitHub
Bitbucket
Datadog
Splunk
Grafana
Kibana
Testing: Postman
Insomnia
Operating Systems: RHEL 7.9/8.x
Core Competencies
- Cloud & Infrastructure
- AWS: Route53, ALB, VPC, EKS, CloudFormation
- Kubernetes: EKS, AKS, Rancher (On-prem)
- IaC: Terraform, AWS CloudFormation
- Linux: RHEL 7.9 / 8.x
- Containerization: Docker
- Cluster Authentication: keconnect for EKS/AKS
- API Platform & security
- Axway API Gateway, Envoy-based API platforms
- F5 GTM/LTM, CyberArk, LDAP, Firewalls
- SSL/TLS, SNI, JWT, OAuth 2.0
- Certificate lifecycle management
- Service account governance
- EC2 → EKS workload migration
- Gateway installation, upgrades, and policy engineering
- Monitoring & DevOps
- Datadog, Splunk, Kibana, Grafana
- GitHub, Bitbucket, Git Bash
- Jenkins, GitHub Actions, uDeploy, uBuild
- CI/CD pipeline administration
- Performance tuning & observability frameworks
- Process excellence
- Incident, change, and service request management
- Root cause analysis & on-call operations
- Agile methodologies
- FinOps optimization & cloud cost governance
Timeline
Principal System Engineer Enterprise Cybersecurity squad
Fidelity Investments
09.2025 - CurrentRead More
Senior System Engineer (IWS Apache web application & API Platform management)
Fidelity Investments
01.2024 - 08.2025Read More
System Engineer (API & Network security squad)
Fidelity Investments
08.2023 - 12.2023Read More
Technical Lead
Cognizant Technology Solutions US Corp
01.2023 - 08.2023Read More
Senior system analyst
Cognizant Technology Solutions
08.2020 - 01.2023Read More
System Analyst
Cognizant Technology Solutions US Corp
08.2017 - 08.2020Read More
Associate
Cognizant Technology Solutions
08.2011 - 08.2017Read More
Bharathidasan University
B.Sc from Chemistry
Read More
Bharathidasan University
M.Sc from Chemistry
Read More
Vellore Institute of Technology
Master Of technology (M.Tech) from Energy & Environmental Engg
Read More