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SIDDHARTHA "SID" RAO
Seattle, WA • sid at sidandlindsay.com
LinkedIn
EXECUTIVE TECHNOLOGY LEADER
CTO • CPO • VP Engineering
Transformational leader with 20+ years scaling engineering organizations from startup to enterprise. Led 178-person global teams at AWS, driving $125M+ in technology investments and 1200%+ growth during critical scaling periods. Public company board member with deep expertise in AI/ML, distributed systems, and product-led growth.
LEADERSHIP IMPACT
• Team Scale: Built and led engineering organizations up to 178 professionals across 13 global regions
• Business Growth: Drove $53M ARR pipeline at current startup; scaled AWS service 1274% in 48 hours
• Strategic Vision: Authored AWS communication strategy approved by Jeff Bezos and Andy Jassy
• Technical Innovation: 23 patents granted; launched AI/ML capabilities processing 1B+ events daily
• M&A & Fundraising: Led acquisition integration at AWS; raised seed funding as CEO/co-founder
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Positron Networks, Seattle, WA
Co-Founder Nov 2023 – July 2025
Leading AI-powered scientific computing platform revolutionizing research infrastructure for enterprises and universities.
• Built $53M ARR pipeline and closed three major enterprise customers within four months of launch
• Raised seed funding; validated product with 50+ enterprises including Harvard and Boston University
• Recruited founding executive team and built beta product with a distributed team on $600K budget
• Architected AI/ML service optimizing job execution and dynamically scaling cloud infrastructure
• Developed go-to-market strategy, achieving 4x user registration growth through AI-powered demand generation
Amazon Web Services (AWS), Seattle, WA
General Manager & Director, Amazon Chime SDK Jan 2018 - Nov 2023
Senior Software Development Manager Jan 2016 - Jan 2018
Software Development Manager Feb 2014 - Jan 2016
Led the creation and scaling of AWS's real-time communication platform from concept to global service.
Strategic Leadership
• Recruited and led 178-member global team across engineering, product, business development, and applied science
• Authored and drove AWS communication strategy, resulting in Amazon Connect and Chime launches
• Scaled service 1274% during the COVID-19 pandemic through automated CI/CD across 13 regions
• Reduced operational load by 73% through infrastructure modernization and automation
Product & Business Impact
• Launched Amazon Chime SDK from concept to production, growing to process 1B+ events daily
• Closed $12M+ enterprise deals with JPMorgan Chase, PayPal, Slack, T-Mobile, and Intuit
• Built machine learning capabilities: noise suppression, packet loss concealment, computer vision
• Improved audio quality by 87% and reduced video errors by 94% through ML optimization
Technical Innovation
• Architected microservices transformation from monolith to 300+ services with immutable deployment
• Built a customer experience data warehouse processing 1B events/day for ML model training
• Pioneered chaos engineering practices, achieving 3 orders of magnitude quality improvement
• Led compliance initiatives across FedRAMP, HIPAA, PCI, SOC, and DoD requirements
CTI Group Inc. (NASDAQ: CTIG), Indianapolis, IN
Chief Technology Officer & Board Director Jan 2004 - Feb 2014
Successful Exit to Enghouse Networks
• Led a 75-person engineering team building carrier-grade real-time communication software with geographic high availability
• Grew carrier partnerships from 7 to 300, including Sprint, Cox, and Verizon
• Served on public company board, including Audit and Compensation Committees
• Designed a cloud communication platform with integrated analytics, driving industry innovation
TECHNICAL EXPERTISE
Leadership Domains: AI/ML Strategy • Platform Engineering • Distributed Systems • DevOps/SRE • Security & Compliance
Technologies: AWS • Kubernetes • Python • TypeScript • React • TensorFlow/PyTorch • WebRTC • Microservices
Methodologies: Agile at Scale • CI/CD • Chaos Engineering • Operational Excellence • Working Backwards
PATENTS & RECOGNITION
• 23 Patents Granted (Lead inventor on 20) in distributed systems, ML, and real-time communications
• AWS Certified Solutions Architect
• Leadership: Mentor at Alchemist Accelerator; President's Circle, University of Washington School of Medicine
