Bijal Thanawala – Career Journey

Amazon AWS – Australia
• 02/2025 – 07/2025

Data Center Technician
Ensured that datacenter servers are healthy and operational while following the safety standards

• Diagnosed and replaced faulty hardware – CPU, RAM, motherboard, SSD
• Troubleshooted and fixed network issues at physical layer
• Regularly participate in Large Scale Event and Rack Down drills to stay certified for handling the disaster
• Routinely engaged in receiving, inspecting and fibre patching new EC2 and AI/ML server racks
• Load new laptops with Windows 11 image and configure with specific requirements for use inside secure server rooms

Data Theorem Labs / Geomotion – Australia
• 11/2023 – 02/2024

Software Developer
Delivered quality software solutions within a short timeframe, while gaining/improving Django, Vue.js, node.js skills

• Improved user experience by creating the signup and password recovery processes
• Enhanced and fixed existing unit tests, improving overall test quality and coverage
• Expanded error-handling capabilities for specific use cases, ensuring better application stability

NBN (National Broadband Network) – Australia
• 11/2022 – 10/2023

Python Developer
Developed Python solutions for data extractions and report generation, and linked it to business logic written in PL/SQL. In the process, gained hands-on experience with cloud technologies, particularly serverless architecture using AWS Lambda.

• Transformed data and generated reports by utilising features offered by Pandas library
• Created a YAML-driven framework to validate and embed new billing rules, ensuring compatibility with future changes
• Utilised AWS Boto3 API for tagging and adding custom metadata to the reports, and uploading the same to the S3 at scheduled times
• Leveraged AWS CloudWatch for logging, DynamoDB for configuration management, and AWS CLI for troubleshooting
• Enhanced existing Lambda by implementing Python Request/Session features
• Authored comprehensive documentation detailing the design flow and usage of each unit of work
• Wrote unit tests using Python’s UnitTest framework for all the developed components

Healius Limited – Australia
• 10/2021 – 07/2022

Full Stack Developer
Enhancements made to in-house laboratory software (written in Python, Django, PostgreSQL, Javascript) used by pathologists to track samples from the collection all the way to the diagnosis phase.

• Leveraged a balanced approach to software engineering tools and best practices, including unit tests, code reviews, GitLab CI/CD pipelines to ensure high-quality deliverables

Metropolis Metering Pty Ltd – Australia
• 11/2019 – 10/2021

Enterprise Software Developer / Full Stack Developer
Implemented a generic sub-system to integrate new billing/charges component using Groovy (Java/JVM compatible language). This involved designing and developing data-driven logic to generate updated billing information, ensuring adaptability to future changes in the billing structure. And also,

• Developed the front-end interface, using Javascript and Groovy templates, for viewing, searching, and filtering technician field visit details by integrating Elasticsearch capabilities. This provided operations and fulfilment teams with improved visibility of field activities.
• Enhanced and maintained ODK forms, enabling technicians to submit field visit details directly to the backend

Software Developer
Enhancement made to the company’s flagship product CR-X, a generic ETL tool written in pure Java. One of the significant of them was to develop a Lucene interface for indexing and searching customer/agent conversation transcripts. And also,

• Assisted with Linux system administration tasks, ensuring smooth system operations
• Mentored an operations team member in Bash scripting, contributing to team skill development

NBN (National Broadband Network) – Australia
• 12/2015 – 05/2018

Python Developer
Worked on various projects:

• Made several improvements to NPT (an in-house network performance test tool written in Python) such as correctly handling multi-part HTTP responses and accurately parsing XML test results
• Performed version control migration. Migrated NPT from Mercurial to Git within the first month of engagement
• Optimized NPT build process, reducing build time from 15-20 minutes to 5 minutes by making it less interactive
• Developed various data pipelines to clean, transform, and load daily network data to Oracle database, using combination of Python and PL/SQL code (Agile methodology). Data pipelines were written in the containerised (Docker) Airflow platform for improved scheduling and monitoring control
• Collaborated in multi-team test campaigns, contributing to successful testing outcomes

RMIT University (Royal Melbourne Institute Of Technology)
• 03/2014 – 12/2014
• 03/2011 – 03/2012

Tutor, Teaching & Lab-Assistant
Roles performed:

• Lead discussion of weekly exercises and solutions with students in classroom setup
• Assess/mark assignments and exams
• Report to the lecturer/course-leader: Provide feedback and suggest improvements

Subjects:

• Data Communications
• Computer Organization
• C Programming
• Algorithms & Analysis

Obsidian Consulting Group – Australia
• 03/2012 – 07/2013

Full stack Developer

• Contributed to company’s primary product Jet Network Billing Software (Python/Pylons)
• Developed graphs / visualizations using HighCharts (JavaScript) library
• Enhanced nfdump/netflow (C) running on an edge-router that product interacted with
• Participated in code reviews

IBM – Bangalore, India & Yamato, Japan
• 07/1998 – 09/2007

Member of Technical Staff (Systems Software Developer)
Delivered projects to wide customer-base with time-critical deadlines.
Some of the highlight projects:

• Worked on the Wifi (802.11) card integration layer of Access Connections (network utility shipped pre-installed on ThinkPads). Written in C/C++
• Developed STOP-AND-WAIT ARQ flow-control over serial (RS-232) line for a medical facility on Linux platform. Written in C.
• Enhanced and maintained touch-screen driver for a medical device on Windows 2000

Zeitnet / Cabletron India – Mumbai, India
• 9/1995 – 07/1998

Systems Software Developer

• Systems-level development on DOS, C/C++, Assembly
• Developed abstraction layer atop DOS to enable porting of 32-bit ATM network stack to 16-bit DOS
• Wrote low-level parallel port I/O routines as Proof-of-Concept for a network project inception phase

Highlights:

• The ATM network stack, originally written for Novel Netware server, was split and fit within 640KB memory limitation of MS-DOS using overlay technique
• The abstraction layer I developed supported boot strapping, memory management and also the inter-communication among different layers of networking
• Developed ingenious debugging techniques to track activities within different layers of network stack

Choudhary International – Mumbai, India
• 08/1994 – 09/1995

Systems Software Developer

• Worked on low-level SCSI tape drive code for the backup software for Wangdat/Adaptac drives
• Wrote low-level parallel port I/O routines as a proof-of-concept during early phase of a project
• Wrote text-GUI library in x86 Assembly to sense mouse events and integrated it with BASIC language

Utilisation of career Gaps

Non-chronological order:

• Completed Bachelor of Technology degree at RMIT university (Feb 2009 – Dec 2010)
• Studied Foundational Course at Latrobe International College – Melbourne (Oct 2007 – Dec 2008)
• Engaged with RMIT University as tutor, lab-assistant, exam assessor during various periods
• Passed Linux LPIC-1 certification in Oct 2013 (expired in Oct 2018)
• Completed Certificate IV in Cybersecurity (Jan 2023 – Dec 2024)
• Passed AI-900 Azure AI Fundamentals certification in Aug 2024
• Learned WordPress (and created this website)
• Learned variety of LinkedIn Learning courses
• Wrote/practiced some data structure algorithms, tools and a game, and open-sourced it here:
  https://github.com/bijalthanawala?tab=repositories
• Learned some Linux kernel building skills and blogged it here:
  https://algounirhythmverse.blogspot.com/
• Some contributions made to CommandLineFu:
  https://www.commandlinefu.com/commands/by/b_t
• Been there to support family members going through various times