All systems operational San Diego

Kajal
Varma

Staff Software Engineer at Intuit, working on systems & reliability engineering for the Consumer Group.

I enjoy working across the stack, with a focus on cloud infrastructure and backend development. My area of focus is operational excellence: the unglamorous work that keeps systems up. Before Intuit San Diego, I studied computing systems at Georgia Tech.

Portrait of Kajal Varma
kajal.jpguptime ∞

Career uptime 2012 → now

Intuit

2015 — present · San Diego, previously Bangalore

  1. Staff Software EngineerSystems & Reliability Engineering, Consumer Group
  2. Senior Software EngineerSystems & Reliability Engineering, Consumer Group
  3. Software Engineer 2Systems & Reliability Engineering, Consumer Group
  4. Software Engineer InternCore Tax Services backend, Consumer Group
  5. Software Engineer 2TurboTax Desktop, Consumer Tax Group · Intuit India
  6. Software Engineer 1TurboTax Desktop, Consumer Tax Group · Intuit India
  7. Software Engineer InternTurboTax Android, Consumer Tax Group · Intuit India

Georgia Tech

2019 · Atlanta

  1. Graduate Teaching AssistantCS 6262 Network Security, taught by Dr. Wenke Lee. Two semesters.

BITS Pilani, Goa

2015 · Goa

  1. Teaching AssistantComputer Architecture
  2. Professional AssistantComputer Programming

RailTel Corporation of India

2014

  1. InternSummer internship through BITS Pilani’s Practice School-I programme

Stack

Languages
Go · Python · C++ · Java · JavaScript (React) · C · bash
Infra & tools
AWS · Kubernetes · Terraform · Jenkins · Wavefront · Git · Linux/UNIX · HTML/CSS
  • GradPython · React

    PromotEd

    A visual interface that recommends courses from multiple online providers based on the job role you want. Machine learning in Python, shell scripts to pull data from MOOC APIs.

    Source
  • GradC++ · gRPC

    MapReduce over gRPC

    A MapReduce simulation in C++, using gRPC for communication between workers in a distributed service.

  • GradC · Hypervisor

    vCPU scheduler & memory coordinator

    Dynamically manages the resources assigned to each guest OS running on a hypervisor in a virtualized setting.

  • UndergradPi · Android

    Raspberry Pi surveillance camera

    Motion detection, montage creation, and email notifications with a Pi Camera, controlled from an Android app.

    Source
  • UndergradC · Linux kernel

    Mouse device driver

    A Linux kernel module that changes screen brightness through mouse clicks.

    Source
  • GradReact

    Pomodoro time tracker

    The web front end for a time-tracking productivity application.

    Source
  • GradML · NLP

    Course recommendation system

    Course recommendations for Georgia Tech from student reviews, with sentiment analysis. Compared user-based, item-based, and content-based filtering.

  • GradSESC

    Cache replacement analysis

    Implemented NXLRU replacement in the SuperESCalar simulator. Measured branch prediction in an out-of-order core and classified cache misses as compulsory, conflict, capacity, or coherence.

  • GradONE · NS-3

    Delay tolerant networks

    Simulated a delay tolerant network with the Opportunistic Network Environment simulator, and a TCP network on NS-3.

  • ResearchC++ · NS-3

    Mobile edge computing packet scheduling

    Custom NS-3 modules to simulate MEC networks, plus tooling to configure experiment runs and plot the results.

  • ResearchC · Java

    EDF-SRP scheduler & MemSim

    An Earliest Deadline First scheduler with Stack Resource Policy for a real-time OS, and MemSim, a Java GUI simulating stack, TLB, and cache for the generated schedule.

  • ResearchReal-time

    Process-aware partitioned cache

    A cache memory design for tightly bound hard real-time systems that eliminates inter-task interference.

  • UndergradCUDA · NVML

    GPU power measurement

    Measures the average power an NVIDIA GPU draws while running a CUDA kernel. Useful for microbenchmarking instructions.

    Source
  • UndergradVerilog

    Phased cache

    An 8-way associative, 512B cache with 16B lines in ModelSim Altera, with write-back and FIFO replacement.

    Source
  • UndergradJava · IOMeter

    DiskSim scheduling

    Java simulations of cyclic cylindrical access and shortest-access-time-first disk scheduling, along with a study of real disk usage measured with IOMeter.

    Source
  • HackUtsav 2017Winner

    TurboTax Sam

    A chatbot giving customers quick answers from inside TurboTax Windows. Built by a team of four at Intuit’s internal hackathon.

  • In24HrsAndroid

    VoicePay

    A prototype Android app that lets visually impaired users manage their bills by voice. Built by a team of two.

  1. ISPA 2018 · IEEE

    Predicting Execution Time of CUDA Kernel Using Static Analysis

    Gargi Alavani, Kajal Varma, Santonu Sarkar

    An analytical model that predicts a GPU kernel’s execution time from its intermediate PTX code without running it, so developers can fix inefficient, energy-hungry code early.

  2. VLSID 2017 · IEEE

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

    Kajal Varma, Geeta Patil, Biju Raveendran

    A TLB architecture that saves a task’s TLB contents to its PCB on preemption and restores them on resume. It reduces misses and per-access time, with 6.74% average dynamic energy savings over a conventional TLB in MemSim.

Aug 2018 — Dec 2019

Georgia Institute of Technology

M.S. Computer Science, specializing in Computing Systems

4.0 / 4.0 GPA

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

Aug 2012 — Jul 2016

BITS Pilani, K. K. Birla Goa Campus

B.E. (Hons.) Computer Science

8.64 / 10 CGPA

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

1998 — 2012

National Public School, Indiranagar

CBSE

Grade XII 97.6% · Grade X CGPA 10.0, 99.9946 percentile

Awards

  • CG Engineering Excellence AwardIntuit
  • CG Engineering Excellence AwardIntuit
  • CG Engineering Excellence AwardIntuit India
  • National Cyber Olympiad: All-India Rank 17, Karnataka Rank 1Science Olympiad Foundation
  • CBSE Science Scholarship, top 1% nationally in Class XIICBSE
  • Mridula Scholarship, school topper in Grade XNational Public School
Two cats, a tuxedo and a black cat, curled up together in a round mesh cat bed
Shadow & Cookieon-call support staff
Colored pencils fanned out on a wooden desk
Artsketches & paintings
Silhouette of a performer in a flowing dress against a lit screen
Mime Club, BITS Goaperforming arts

At BITS Goa