Surendra Raika

Engineering Leader · Platform Architect · Systems Thinker

ServiceNow Go Systems Programming Cloud-Native
architecting enterprise platforms  |  leading engineering teams  |  building what doesn't exist yet

$ whoami

Engineering leader and platform architect with 13+ years shipping enterprise systems at scale. I lead teams that build on ServiceNow, design Go backend infrastructure, and solve the kind of problems that sit at the intersection of platform engineering and distributed systems. When I'm not leading delivery, I'm usually somewhere deep in the stack — tracing through jq's parser internals, writing OS kernels from scratch, or designing event-driven architectures.

I've architected MCP protocol servers for AI-agent integration, built lightweight MID server replacements, designed full-stack onboarding platforms with chaos engineering baked in, and led cross-functional teams through complex platform migrations. I think in systems, ship in Go, and believe the best architecture decisions come from understanding the machine all the way down.

Location India
Focus Platform architecture, engineering management, systems design
Languages Go, C++, C, Java, Python, JavaScript, Rust, Zig
Platforms ServiceNow, Docker, Kubernetes, Knative, Linux
Depth areas Protocol design, OS internals, load balancer architecture, distributed caching
Currently MCP protocol servers for AI agents, MIPT C++ systems coursework, cross-language benchmarking

$ cat /etc/expertise

ServiceNow Engineering

ServiceNow MCP Protocol REST APIs

Architected an MCP protocol server enabling AI-agent integration with ServiceNow. Designed a lightweight MID server replacement with ECC queue proxy, eliminating vendor lock-in. Led custom UI component development and enterprise workflow automation at scale.

Backend & Systems

Go C++ C Rust Zig

Designed event-driven microservice architectures and binary protocol layers. Built OS kernels (MIT 6.828), implemented string search algorithms in Zig, and explored C++ template metaprogramming through MIPT coursework. Systems thinking applied end-to-end.

Infrastructure & Testing

Docker Kubernetes Jenkins Linux

Established load testing frameworks (Gatling, k6, Artillery) and chaos engineering practices for production readiness. Drove container orchestration strategy with Kubernetes and Knative, owned CI/CD pipeline architecture, and studied load balancer internals from Pingora to custom implementations.

$ git log --oneline --career

ServiceNow

Application Development Manager

Jan 2024 - Present

Senior Staff ServiceNow Developer

Apr 2023 - Jan 2024

Maersk Global Service Centres

ServiceNow Application Developer

Jan 2021 - Apr 2023

Hitachi Vantara

Senior Application Developer

Apr 2019 - Jan 2021

Wipro Limited

ServiceNow Developer

May 2018 - Apr 2019

Atos

ITSM Implementation Consultant

Feb 2017 - May 2018

Tech Mahindra

Senior Software Engineer

Sep 2014 - Feb 2017

Tata Consultancy Services

Software Engineer

May 2011 - Aug 2014

$ ls -la ~/projects --featured

go-mcp-servicenow

Go

Production-grade MCP protocol server bridging AI agents to ServiceNow. Designed the binary protocol layer, client-server auth flow, ETag-based caching, TLS mutual auth, OAuth2 integration, and Prometheus observability from the ground up.

View on GitHub

liteMIDgo

Go

Engineered a lightweight alternative to ServiceNow's MID server. Clean HTTP/HTTPS proxy to the ECC queue with built-in metrics, Docker-native deployment, and production health monitoring — designed for teams that need control without the bloat.

View on GitHub

newhireonboard

Java

End-to-end onboarding platform I architected and built. Spring Boot + React, intelligent buddy matching algorithm, JWT auth, and a full load testing + chaos engineering harness to validate resilience before shipping.

View on GitHub

Random-Topics

Mixed

Technical deep dives that sharpen architectural intuition. jq source code analysis, UUID v7 Postgres benchmarks, Java caching patterns (Redis/RabbitMQ), and load balancer internals from Pingora to building one from scratch.

View on GitHub

leetcoder

Java / C / Go / Rust

Systematic algorithm archive across four languages. Every problem solved 3+ ways from brute force to optimal, with JMH benchmarks and cross-language performance analysis to understand trade-offs at the metal level.

View on GitHub

oslab-6828

C

MIT 6.828 Operating Systems Engineering. Built a kernel from scratch — virtual memory, system calls, process scheduling, interrupt handling. The kind of foundation work that makes you a better architect at every layer above.

View on GitHub
More projects →
ProjectLangWhat it does
go_asyncapi Go Event-driven microservice architecture — API gateway, async worker pattern, PostgreSQL, LocalStack/AWS integration
go-design-patterns Go Reference implementation of idiomatic Go patterns — creational, structural, behavioral, and concurrency
CPPLearningMIPT C++ MIPT systems coursework — nullptr_t semantics, volatile correctness, pointer safety, modern C++23
whatJelly Java Apache Jelly internals deep dive — full-stack app, custom SQL tag library, D3.js data visualizations
graceful-server-shutdown Go Production-hardened graceful shutdown patterns for Go HTTP servers
Pulse Go Real-time infrastructure monitoring for Proxmox, Docker, K8s — AI-driven insights and smart alerting
zig-string-searching Zig Boyer-Moore and Bitap string search algorithms — low-level systems implementation in Zig

$ cat /proc/skills

Technical

ServiceNow Platform Go C++ Systems Programming MCP Protocol Generative AI Application Security Service Mapping Discovery Custom Apps

Leadership & Management

Technical Leadership Team Leadership Engineering Management Coaching & Mentoring Stakeholder Engagement Product Strategy Capacity Planning

Infrastructure & Testing

Docker Kubernetes Knative Gatling k6 Chaos Engineering CI/CD Prometheus

$ cat ~/.interests

┌─ ServiceNow Platform ┌─ Systems Programming │ MCP protocol for AI agents │ C++ metaprogramming (MIPT) │ MID server alternatives │ OS kernel dev (MIT 6.828) │ Custom UI components │ Zig string search algorithms │ ECC queue integration │ Rust memory safety │ │ ├─ Deep Technical Dives ├─ Cloud-Native & Testing │ jq parser source analysis │ Kubernetes, Knative serverless │ UUID v7 Postgres benchmarks │ Load testing: Gatling, k6, Artillery │ Caching: Redis + RabbitMQ │ Chaos engineering experiments │ Load balancers: Pingora, │ Container orchestration │ Traefik, building from scratch │ Application security (ASPM) │ │ └─ Event-Driven & APIs └─ Developer Tooling AsyncAPI microservices Go design patterns MCP protocol for LLM tooling Graceful shutdown patterns Worker patterns + LocalStack Cross-language benchmarking