I'm Kajal Varma.

Software engineer. Student. Learner. Dreamer.

I am a software engineer at Intuit working on performance, scalability, and reliability. Previously, I was a graduate student at Georgia Institute of Technology.

I am interested in software development and computing systems, including operating systems, computer architecture, and networks.

I also enjoy reading and creating art.

View Resumé

Education

Georgia Institute of Technology

Master of Science in Computer Science
GPA: 4.0/4.0
Specialization: Computing Systems

Aug 2018 - Dec 2019

Coursework:

  • Advanced Operating Systems
  • High Performance Computer Architecture
  • Computer Networks
  • Network Security
  • Big Data Systems and Analytics
  • Introduction to Information Security
  • Advanced Software Engineering
  • Data and Visual Analytics
  • Graduate Algorithms
  • Special Problem (independent research)

Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani - K. K. Birla Goa Campus

B.E. (Hons.) Computer Science
CGPA: 8.64 / 10.0

Aug 2012 - Jul 2016

Some relevant coursework:

  • Operating Systems
  • Computer Architecture
  • Data Storage Technologies and Networks
  • Data Structures and Algorithms
  • Database Systems

National Public School, Indiranagar

Grade XII: 97.60 %
Grade X: Percentile 99.9946, CGPA 10.0

1998 - 2012

Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE)

Publications

Predicting Execution Time of CUDA Kernel Using Static Analysis

Gargi Alavani, Kajal Varma, Santonu Sarkar

ISPA 2018

GPU-based parallel applications are becoming complex and long-running which makes it energy inefficient. Anticipating execution time can help the developers to fix inefficient code before running it. We propose an approach to predict the execution time of a GPU kernel without the need of executing it. We build an analytical model to predict the execution time of a GPU kernel by analyzing the intermediate PTX code of a CUDA kernel.

View Publication

DTLB: Deterministic TLB for Tightly Bound Hard Real-time Systems

Kajal Varma, Geeta Patil, Biju Raveendran

VLSID 2017

This paper proposes a novel TLB architecture - Deterministic Translation Lookaside Buffer – to reduce TLB misses, energy consumption and effective per-access time. This is achieved by backing the TLB contents of the executing task to its PCB on preemption, and transferring the PCB contents back to the TLB when the task resumes execution. Experimental results carried out using MemSim, a single clock cycle simulator developed in Java with Swing GUI, show that the DTLB offers on an average 6.74% of dynamic energy savings over a conventional TLB model.

View Publication

Projects

Independent Projects/Research

Energy Estimation of High-Performance Computing Applications
Research thesis on prediction of energy consumption of an NVIDIA CUDA kernel through static analysis of compiled PTX code and power modelling of benchmarks on an NVIDIA GPU. Paper published in ISPA 2018.

DTLB: Deterministic TLB for Tightly Bound Hard Real-Time Systems
Deterministic translation lookaside buffer (DTLB) and cache design and simulation for hard real-time systems, to eliminate inter-task interference and obtain dynamic energy savings. Paper published in IEEE VLSID 2017.

Deterministic Process-Aware Partitioned Cache for Tightly Bound Hard Real-Time Systems
Worked on a research project in the area of real-time operating systems, proposing a cache memory design that eliminates inter-task interference.

Design of Scheduler and Memory for a Real-Time System
Implemented an Earliest Deadline First Scheduler with Stack Resource Policy (EDF-SRP) in C for process scheduling and memory management in a real-time operating system. Implemented MemSim, a memory simulator GUI in Java with a stack, TLB, and cache, to simulate the memory footprint of the schedule generated by EDF-SRP.

Mobile Edge Computing Packet Scheduling
Added support for simulation of Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) networks in NS-3 by implementing custom C++ modules. Added functionality to configure execution of several experiments in order to easily collect and plot data for research purposes.

Graduate Course Projects

Analysis of Cache Replacement Policy using SESC Simulator
Implemented NXLRU (Next to Least Recently Used) cache replacement policy in the SuperESCalar Simulator. Gathered data on branch prediction accuracy and performance in an out-of-order processor. Classified misses as compulsory, conflict, capacity and coherence misses in the cache.

PromotEd
PromotEd - Webpage
Built a visual interface which recommends courses from multiple online course providers based on desired job roles. Used Python for machine learning algorithms, React, and shell scripts to collect data from MOOC APIs.

Pomodoro Time Tracker Web Application
Built the web application front-end for a time-tracker productivity application using React.

MapReduce Infrastructure using gRPC
Implemented a MapReduce simulation in C++ by using gRPC for communication in a distributed service.

vCPU Scheduler and Memory Coordinator for Virtual Machines
Implementation of a scheduler and memory coordinator to dynamically manage resources assigned to each guest OS running on a hypervisor in a virtualized setting in C.

Course Recommendation System
Built a course recommendation website for Georgia Tech using student reviews, performed sentiment analysis on the reviews. Compared user-based and item-based collaborative filtering, and content-based recommendation.

Simulation of Delay Tolerant Networks
Simulated a delay tolerant network using the ONE (Opportunistic Network Environment) simulator, and a TCP-network on NS-3 simulator.

Undergraduate Course Projects

Raspberry Pi Surveillance Camera with Motion Detection and Android Application
Implemented motion detection, montage creation and email notifications with a Raspberry Pi and Pi Camera, which could be controlled through an Android application.

Linux Kernel Mouse Device Driver Implementation
Implementation of a kernel device driver module in C to change the brightness of the screen through mouse clicks.

Simulation of DiskSim disk scheduling algorithms
DiskSim is a hard disk simulation software used for I/O analysis research. Implemented a Java simulation of two scheduling algorithms - cyclic cylindrical access, and shortest access time first. Collected disk usage data of PC using IOMeter, an I/O subsystem measurement and characterization tool for single and clustered systems, as a study of disk performance.

Phased Cache Design and Implementation
Simulated an eight-way associative cache of 512B size and 16B line size using Verilog in ModelSim Altera. Implemented write back policy and FIFO replacement policy in the cache.

Hackathons

TurboTax Sam
Worked in a team of four to develop a chatbot for HackUtsav 2017, an internal hackathon held at Intuit. The chatbot provides quick and easy answers to customers from within TurboTax Windows. Emerged the winners of the hackathon.

VoicePay
Worked in a team of two in the In24Hrs Hackathon held at Intuit. Built a prototype of an Android application that enables the visually impaired to manage their bills through voice.

Work Experience

Senior Software Engineer
Intuit
August 2021 - Present
Software engineer in the Performance, Reliability, and Optimization Engineering (Site Reliability Engineering) team.
Software Engineer 2
Intuit
January 2020 - July 2021
Software engineer in the Performance, Reliability, and Optimization Engineering (Site Reliability Engineering) team.
Graduate Teaching Assistant
Georgia Tech
August 2019 - Present
Worked as a TA for CS 6262 Network Security taught by Dr Wenke Lee at Georgia Institute of Technology.
Software Engineer Intern
Intuit
May 2019 - August 2019
Software engineer intern in the Core Tax Services backend team, Consumer Group.
Graduate Teaching Assistant
Georgia Tech
January 2019 - May 2019
Worked as a TA for CS 6262 Network Security taught by Dr Wenke Lee at Georgia Institute of Technology.
Software Engineer 2
Intuit India
February 2018 - August 2018
Software developer in the TurboTax Desktop team, Consumer Tax Group.
Software Engineer 1
Intuit India
August 2016 - January 2018
Software developer in the TurboTax Desktop team, Consumer Tax Group.
Software Engineer Intern
Intuit India
May 2015 - July 2015
Software engineer intern in the TurboTax Android team, Consumer Tax Group.
Intern
RailTel Corp of India Ltd
May 2014 - July 2014
Summer internship at RailTel Corporation of India Ltd as a part of BITS Pilani's PS-I (Practice School-I) programme.
Teaching Assistant
BITS Pilani Goa
August 2015 - December 2015
Worked as a TA for Computer Architecture at BITS Pilani - K. K. Birla Goa Campus.
Professional Assistant
BITS Pilani Goa
January 2015 - May 2015
Worked as a PA for Computer Programming at BITS Pilani - K. K. Birla Goa Campus.

Awards

CG Excellence Award 2021

Engineering Excellence Award - 2021 for the Consumer Group at Intuit.

Intuit, March 2021

CG Excellence Award 2018

Engineering Excellence Award - 2018 for the Consumer Group at Intuit.

Intuit India, April 2018

Winner, Intuit HackUtsav 2017

Developed a chat bot, TurboTax Sam, as in-product help for TurboTax Windows.

Intuit India, July 2017

National Cyber Olympiad

All-India Rank 17 and Karnataka Rank 1 in the National Cyber Olympiad.

Science Olympiad Foundation, June 2012

CBSE Science Scholarship

Stood amongst the top 1% in India in Class XII CBSE Exam, earning the eligibility of a scholarship from CBSE.

June 2012

Mridula Scholarship

School topper in the Grade X CBSE Board Exam with a national percentile of 99.9946.

National Public School, January 2011

Skills

Programming Languages Go (Golang), Python, C++, Java, JavaScript (React), C, bash
Tools and Technologies Amazon Web Services (AWS), Kubernetes, Git, Terraform, Jenkins, Wavefront, HTML/CSS, Linux/UNIX

Interests

Art Gallery

Sketches | Paintings

Mime Club, BITS Goa

Performing Arts | Acting

Department of Creative Media

Web Design | Web Development

Department of Photography

Editing | Photoshop | Lightroom