Himank Pande

Technical Program Manager at Amazon Braket - AWS service that offers tools and resources for working with quantum computers.

Previously I kept ~1M+ Amazonians Connected 📞📹💬 & Safe ⛑ everyday.

Work Motto: Work Hard 🏋🏽, Build Smart💡, Have Fun 🎉, Shape the Future 🔮, Impact WorldWide 🌎🌏🌍

“Program management & delivery”
“Program roadmap & timeline planning”
“Program risk evaluation, security compliance and audits”
“Program operational excellence”
“Product development & user go-to strategy”
“Product architecture recommendation”
“Product assessment & recommendation”
“Bridge the Technical + Legal conversations to actionable conclusions”
“Customer Satisfaction Champion”

👉Quantum Computing Leader: Brainstorming Quantum Computing’s applications in security, finance, health, communications, forecasting, agriculture & artificial intelligence.

👉System Design & Architecture Expertise: 12 years of learning, teaching, building & applying best practices for operational excellence in system design and architecture.

👉Program Management Expertise: Learning & applying best practices to mitigate business risks while assessing tradeoffs to deliver Enterprise and Customer facing programs.

📝AWS Solutions Architect - Associate
📝AWS Certified Developer - Associate*
📝AWS Certified Machine Learning Specialist*
📝Working knowledge of BERT - NLP
📝CoreML for Machine Learning
📝Reliability Engineering Practitioner
📝Google Cloud Platform Associate*
📝ITILv3 Foundation
📝NACI Level 1
📝CCIE Collaboration (2014-2022)

*Ongoing

1. Technical Program Manager - Amazon Braket
2. Technical Program Manager - Amazon Enterprise Engineering
3. Senior Network Engineer - Versa Integrated Solutions Inc.
4. Senior Network Consultant - National Institutes of Health
5. Technical Accounts Manager - CloudMatos
6. Freelancer - Upwork
7. Technical Solutions Leader - Cisco Systems Inc.
8. Training Consultant - HCL Technologies
9. Visiting Assistant Professor - Uttarakhand Technical University

HIGHLIGHTS (Amazon)

• Technical Program Manager for Amazon Braket – AWS service that offers tools and resources for working with quantum computers. I am primarily responsible for driving external product & feature launches, adding new Quantum Computers to our supported fleet & lead the Security Program which includes application and vendor security, security audits & onboarding the service to various industry compliance certifications like SOC2, FedRAMP, ISO, PCI etc.
• Delivered an AWS ML based Slack Communication Grid Analysis tool using Generative AI on existing communication Data Lakes. This is expected to improve employee productivity at AWS by at least 25-30% by using IP (Intellectual property boundary) controlled AI bots running against 3 data lakes (Slack messaging, Meetings data and telephony). This effort has now expanded to Amazon Meetings (internal) and Amazon UC Telephony Data to create user persona-based insights on how Amazonians use productivity tools.
• Delivered Amazon Braket achieve SOC2 compliance in Q2 2023.
• Launched IonQ Aria device on the Amazon Braket platform in Q2 2023 which added support of the highest fidelity publicly available device to date. With Aria, customers can also experiment with IonQ’s built-in error mitigation techniques for the first time, a key tool to get the most out of today’s noisy quantum hardware. Interestingly with this launch, IonQ Aria stock prices rocketed upwards ~70%.
• Launched the Amazon Braket Adjoint Gradient feature in Q4 2022 which helps our customers with unlocking runtime improvements and cost savings for their quantum machine learning and optimization workloads.
• Launched the quantum computer Aquila on Amazon Braket in Q4 2022, the first neutral-atom quantum processor from QuEra Computing which enables researchers to explore a new analog paradigm of quantum computing.
• Launched the quantum computer Aspen M-3 on Amazon Braket which is 79-qubit quantum processor from Rigetti computing.
• Delivered a Director leadership effort to streamline 30+ organization goals (Selipsky level, AWS and LT goals) of a 500+ employee org. The effort spans teams owned by 6, Level 7 Senior Managers with the purpose of delivering mechanisms to improve the goal lifecycle governance methodology. This has helped optimize goal review meetings for EE since Q2 2022 with 26% increase in efficiency as of Q3 2022.
• Assisted Amazon’s C-level leadership (request initiated from the office of Andy Jassy), by creating narratives to recommend options between 1P & 3P collaboration tools while assessing 13 primary user requirements laid by Amazon Premium Support. The goal was to define a mechanism to achieve seamless collaboration for both technical troubleshooting and executive level updates by Amazon Premium Support in case of major AWS outages across the globe which have a direct impact on Amazon’s external customers.
• Technical Program Manager at Amazon Web Services’ Engagement & Productivity org where I am responsible for defining and delivering 5 programs. Enterprise Telephony (70M+ total calls yearly with 3.4M+ total call minutes), Enterprise Emergency Calls (120K users onboarded to Next Generation 911, 400+ total monthly 911 calls – US only), Enterprise FAX (16K total faxes sent monthly WW), Enterprise Video Conferencing (16K VC Endpoints WW, 145K meetings created by room panels), Critical audio conferencing for Amazon Large Scale Events or LSEs (750+ max participants on a single call, 320K conferencing minutes). My programs have broad cross-organizational, cross-business, and significant technology impact in the engagement and productivity of ~1.8 Million Amazon Employees and Subsidiaries. 
• Planned and delivered Slack Enterprise Grid for ~850K Amazon Employees and Subsidiaries Worldwide alongside playing a key role managing stakeholders on Slack communication governance, achieving HR and Legal policy objectives and overall Operational Excellence.
• Planned and delivered (Inception to Execution), an engineering effort involving 400+ stakeholders across Amazon businesses to solve a significantly complex problem of delivering precise location of a 911 caller to Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs). The solution resolved a legal compliance for the Amazon apart from raising the bar on health and safety at Amazon across the businesses i.e., Amazon Corporate, AWS Data Centers and Amazon Ops & Fulfillment Centre sites. By mitigating the legal compliance for Amazon, we are now safe from possible legal suites by the FCC.

HIGHLIGHTS (pre-Amazon)

• 13+ years of specializing in project planning, systems design and technical implementation of productivity & software applications with extensive work on enterprise security & product interoperability.
• 7+ years of specializing in IoT & Physical Security products across multiple vendors. Led Cisco’s Physical Security Access Manager and Video Surveillance Manager product teams. Product critique for Verkada (cloud based physical security systems provider).
• Created a conversational AI chatbot using Cisco Webex teams API to help the productivity and engagement operations team gather information on existing operational issues and reducing pre-maintenance operational check runtime from ~1hour to a ~3 minutes. (Appendix A)
• Co-Founder and Collaboration technology Architect of CloudVivo by BayInfotech (now CloudMatos) in 2015. This is a medium sized cloud-based collaboration service started by likeminded networking experts that provided VoIP services to residential customers and small businesses however after its acquisition by onemindservices.com, the service today has expanded to 25K+ active Unified Communication customers (Catalog).
• Led an engineering team (for 9 highly skilled UC Engineers) of the COVID19 UCC Response Team at NIH where I was directly responsible for the providing Critical UC Services to Scientists, PIs and IT Personnel actively working on COVID-19 Vaccine at NIH.
• Designed the Solution to provide NIH, a Virtual Town Hall, led by Dr. Francis Collins (Director, NIH) with an outreach of 30K+ people to address COVID19 questions.
• Designed the Solution to provide Dr. Francis Collins (Director, NIH) and Dr. Anthony Fauci (Director, NIAID) to cast their COVID19 “Francis from Home” Sessions reaching out to 100K+ viewers across HHS and its Opdivs.
• At NIH, responsible for overall design, implementation, planning, configuring, and troubleshooting of the NIH UCC and the NIH Contact Centers’ Network. My Team enabled the 45K+ Scientists, Doctors, Research Scholars, Physicians, Grant Fellows, Federal Employees and Contractors across 27 different Institutes and Centers, to Communicate and Collaborate with each other and to the outside world using VoIP, Video, Instant Messaging, FAX, Email and Screenshare.
• As one of the youngest Technical Solutions Leader, trained a team of 24 Engineers handling Cisco Unified Communications, IoT and Physical Security portfolios at Cisco TAC. My team which was known for its bad CSAT, was able to rise in a span of 3 years with continuous CSAT improvements bagging Kudos across Cisco.
• Runners Up in a Cisco Hackathon where my team of 2, developed a JavaScript based Cisco Spark (now Webex Teams) and Cisco Jabber integration, which formed basis for today’s Cisco Jabber Teams Messaging Mode which is marketed as an Enterprise Solution to Cisco Customers.
• Delivered CCNA(Voice) training at HCL TSS (Manesar), India, to budding Engineers and drove multiple CCIE Training Bootcamps at a reputed training provider, Network Bulls at Gurugram, India for CCIE aspirants.
• Visiting Assistant Professor at my Alma Mater, Uttarakhand Technical University, India.
• Certificate of Merit for best Technical Lead at AVVID, Cisco TAC amongst the Global Delivery Partners.
• Awarded the NIH CIT Award of Merit for Teamwork and Collaboration for providing voice and email services to over 48K users at NIH and HRSA organizations under U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)
• Awarded NIH CIT IT Operational Excellence to convert users from old ISDN based Telephony Solution to new SIP based VoIP Solution under U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

EXPERIENCE

Amazon Web Services, Technical Program Manager II
September 2020 – Present

• Since Q3 2022, I am own technical program management for the Amazon Braket which is the customer facing Quantum computing service offered by Amazon. I own 3 programs which includes 3P Quantum computer hardware provider onboarding, Braket feature launches and Braket’s end to end security & related compliance.
• From Q4 2020 – Q3 2022, owner and Driver of complex cloud and telephony technology initiatives by delivering critical solutions, making significant improvements by creating mechanisms or deprecating systems that are no longer needed. My efforts span multiple cross-org teams.
• From Q4 2020 – Q3 2022, I was accountable for the overall strategy of 2 large, 1 medium and 2 small yet critical programs. I manage all stages of these programs (concept to delivery) by defining narratives & business goals during OP1 and OP2 seasons.
• An avid voice in system architecture decisions (e.g. workflows, APIs, runtime characteristics, design limitations, and maintenance requirements), I am able to influence my teams’ technical priorities and business strategy through data-driven contributions.
• My program management practices are an example to others. I mentor and onboard new TPMs, senior, mid-level and entry-level engineers on the technologies supported by the productivity and engagement org. My crisp and clear goal updating & tracking mechanisms made me align with the goal governance efforts where I was able to contribute to my organization’s objectives.
• Communicate ideas effectively, verbally and in writing, to a wide range of audiences including Directors, Senior Management and VPs. Ability to steer a constructive dialogue, streamline discordant views and lead the resolution of contentious issues. Establishing partnerships with customers, stakeholders and engineering teams comes naturally to me.
• My program management practices set a great example to others. I routinely and efficiently deliver the right things. You define clear goals and objectives. You drive crisp decisions in your program area about what projects move forward and in what priority order. You proactively identify risks and bring them to the attention of your team and stakeholders with plans for mitigation before they become roadblocks. 
• I simplify narratives am amplify partnerships by judiciously adding, refining, and removing procedures where needed. By applying project management best practices, I increase the productivity and effectiveness of the teams I work with.
• Scope engineering efforts under control and accelerate progress, or operational efficiencies by driving crisp and timely decisions, identifying, and clearing blockers, and escalating appropriately.
• Improve team processes and metrics by unblocking delivery, accelerate innovation, reduce costs and/or improve quality.
• Own communication of the project status to stakeholders by consistently impacting clear and concise summaries for the projects owned to the leadership/management team and effectively answer any questions in detail.
• Delivered telecommunication specific product evaluation-based strategy plan for the Future of productivity at Amazon which includes direction on how Amazonians should become more productive using productivity & collaboration tools. Tasked with assessing 4 options I initiated a working backwards effort to categorize existing product features and completed product evaluation of MS Teams, Google Voice, Amazon Unified Communications (UC) products and remaining status quo.
• Delivered contract renewal efforts and Delivered ~$10 Million in savings while reducing the overall cost of Legacy Video Conferencing solutions across Amazon. Apart from managing the 3P vendor relationships, I provided key technical insights on the over-engineered infrastructure based on usage analytics data which easily helped me drive the cost down and improve operational excellence. My continued efforts have led to $5M contract with 3P (Polycom) to completely sunset the on-prem service & migrate it to 3P hosted cloud removing any AWS dependencies for critical conferencing during LSEs.
• Co-Chairperson of Social Events Committee at Amazon’s Connect@ group where I am responsible planning and delivering socially engaging events for almost 6K+ AWS employees in the DC Metro area. This is my leadership role for community engagement at Amazon where my team has delivered 15 events since Q1 2022 with an audience between 50-150 participants.
• Currently campaigning for Post Quantum Crypto (PQC) on AWS Services and an active voice in AWS security programs related to the Quantum Safe Campaign to define a PQC Migration strategy. This directly impacts AWS-wide security to be able to integrate PQC into common internet protocols like TLS/SSL, X.509 certifications, VPN, SSH, MACsec, QUIC etc.

Versa Integrated Solutions Inc., Lead Senior Network Engineer
October 2016 – September 2020, Contracting Consultant at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

• Lead the Unified Communications and Collaboration (UCC) team at the National Institutes of Health and responsible for End to End Design, Implementation, Planning, Configuring and Troubleshooting the NIH UCC and the NIH Contact Centers’ Network.
• Directly Responsible for the NIH Clinical Center Unified Communication Services and various Contact Centers which is one of the United States’ largest Research Hospital facility.
• Handling the entire Cisco, Microsoft and Poly Collaboration and Contact Center Portfolio including several 3rd party API Integrations. Testing new products, features & creating SOPs, HLD/LLDs for Engineering references.
• Planned, Designed and Implemented the Cisco-Microsoft Next Gen Interop to ensure Cisco Voice and Video Infra. can interact with the Microsoft Skype for Business and Poly Platform, seamlessly.
• Planned, Designed and Architected the Migration of 48K+ ISDN lines to new SIP trunks resulting in major $$ Savings for the US Federal Government.
• Planned, Designed and Architected the Migration of 20K+ Voicemail Boxes resulting in $400K Savings by preventing NIH buying another VM Solution.
• Architected and Designed Cloud Based Cisco Webex Teams and Cisco Webex Edge Audio Solution for NIH to stride towards Cloud Adoption thereby reducing costs and saving around $600K.
• Implemented End to End Quality of Service (QOS) for the Voice and Video networks to ensure Best in Class Voice, Video and Screen Share experience over the NIH Network.
• Leading the adoption of System Reliability Engineering (SRE) approach in the UCC Engineering Team to ensure Task Automation to prevent Task-Loops and reduce Project Completion Timelines. Includes ChatBOT implementation.

Aricent, now Capgemini (Cisco TAC), Technical Solutions Leader
August 2010 – September 2016

• Lead and trained a team of 24 Engineers handling Cisco Unified Communications, IoT and Physical Security portfolios.
• Escalation Systems Engineer for the team and other L1, L2 and L3 sites (comprising 500+ Engineers for a follow-the-sun process).
• Provided Configuration, Design and Troubleshooting Support to Cisco Systems Inc.’s Enterprise Customers.
• Closely worked with the Development Escalation Business Unit on IoT, Collaboration Trainings, code BUGs, Big Data Solution Implementation and Certifications.
• Actively participated in Cisco Support Forum and Knowledge base creation for Cisco Systems Inc.
• Developed JavaScript based Cisco Spark (now Webex Teams) and Cisco Jabber integration which formed basis for today’s Cisco Jabber Teams Messaging Mode which is marketed as an Enterprise Solutions to Cisco Users.
• Primarily worked on protocols likes TCP/IP, HTTP, SSL, ICMP, SIP, XMPP, H.323, MGCP, ISDN, MGCP, SCCP, POTS, SS7.

Primary Skills

• Assist C-level, Director level leadership to build mechanisms for Enterprise Governance Frameworks
• Establish mechanisms to deduce business insights using Data Analytics
• Create mechanisms to bring frugality using existing tools
• Program Management & Delivery – Specialized in Security
• Program & Product Risk Evaluation - Specialized in Security
• Product Development & User Go to Strategy
• Product Architecture, Assessment & Recommendation
• Product Security audit and mitigation consultancy
• Program Operational Excellence & Reliability engineering practitioner.
• Drive Partnerships to Minimize Friction
• Customer Satisfaction Champion
• Unified Communications Technology
• Virtualization and Data Center Technology
• IoT and Physical Security Technology

Interests & Certifications

• Heavy Interest in Natural Language Processing (NLP) and made iOS apps using Apple’s CoreML with good understanding of Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT) and Machine Learning Models.
• Quantum Communication
• Quantum Machine Learning
• Digital Signal Processors and Quantization Techniques
• Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert CCIE in Collaboration (2014-2022) and ITILv3 Foundation
• Cloud Ready– AWS (Solutions Architect – Associate). Google Cloud – Certifications in Progress

Uttarakhand Technical University, Bachelor’s in Computer Science Engineering

Oct 2006 - May 2010, First Division, Specializing in Networking & Certifications in Ethical Hacking.

Academic Projects

• Lattice  Vector Quantization using A3* lattice Image Compression. Using the existing Voronoi Diagrams, we were able to achieve better SNR for Image Compression – Ecole Polytechnique de Nantes', France (Onsite Research trainee)