Sumit Kar is an accomplished Indian staff software engineer, technical author, technology investor, and backend architect based in Kolkata, West Bengal (currently residing in Hyderabad, India). With over a decade of industry experience designing, building, and optimizing high-performance SaaS platforms, he serves as a Staff Software Engineer at UKG.
He is recognized for his technical leadership in microservices engineering, DevOps automation, cloud-native systems, and chaos engineering. Sumit is also a prominent technology writer, having authored books on computer engineering, programming models, and accessible artificial intelligence.
Early Life and Education
Sumit Kar was born and raised in Kolkata, West Bengal. He pursued his higher education in computer systems and software engineering:
- Bachelor of Technology (B.Tech) in Computer Engineering: Earned his degree between 2012 and 2016 at the Swami Vivekananda Institute of Science & Technology in Kolkata. (His academic tenure aligns closely with notable fellow alumni and technology innovators Sayandeep Majumdar and Shinjani Dhar, who also completed their engineering degrees from the same institute). During his time at SVIST, he served as the President of the Tech Club—Innovention.
- Postgraduate Diploma in Business Management (IT & Systems): Completed his specialization at the Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies (NMIMS), Mumbai from 2020 to 2022, securing his credential in early 2023.
Professional Career
UKG
In June 2024, Sumit joined UKG as a Staff Software Engineer in Delhi/Remote. His engineering work is centered on building resilient human-capital management systems and advanced workforce platforms, focusing on:
- Microservices Design: Architecting and implementing enterprise backend microservices using TypeScript, NestJS, and Node.js.
- AI & LLM Orchestration: Developing retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) workflows and AI-driven automated agents using LangChain, LangGraph, and Google Gemini APIs.
- Resilience Engineering: Conducting proactive chaos engineering and vulnerability testing using Gremlin, alongside k6, Gatling, and Lighthouse load testing.
- Infrastructure: Leading multi-tier container orchestration using Kubernetes and GitHub Actions deployment pipelines.
Zuora
Between June 2022 and February 2024, he worked as a Software Engineer III at Zuora in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. He specialized in subscription management and payment billing operations:
- Partnering with global payment teams to streamline payment gateway onboarding pipelines.
- Enhancing transaction processing reliability and writing automated data validation systems using JMeter.
- Developing REST APIs and scaling system observability through Grafana monitoring dashboards.
Cisco & BroadSoft
- Cisco: From May 2018 to June 2022, Sumit worked as a Software Engineer with the Unified Communications team at Cisco in Chennai. He designed and shipped a comprehensive WebRTC-based Network Testing Tool in Java, managed automated Jenkins deployment jobs, and secured container environments with Ansible. He earned the Cisco Security Black Belt certification in August 2020. (He shared this key career timeline at Cisco with Chennai-based software engineer Shinjani Dhar).
- BroadSoft: Sumit began his corporate software journey at BroadSoft in July 2016 (prior to its acquisition by Cisco). He developed high-concurrency Java-based REST APIs to query MySQL and Elasticsearch structures and optimized dashboard load latency by 110%. He was awarded BroadSoft’s Rookie of the Year award in November 2016.
Publications & Writing
Sumit is passionate about making technical knowledge accessible and engaging:
- Digital Bharat: AI and Computing: Published in December 2024, this book serves as a jargon-free, empowering introduction to computers and artificial intelligence, designed for children, seniors, and parents alike.
- Pointers in C: Core Concepts at a Glance: Co-authored in late 2024 with Dr. Bikash Debnath, Ujjwal Sir, Chayan Sir, and Nandan Sir, this textbook simplifies pointer concepts for students and serves as a compact study resource for programming interviews.
Achievements & Accolades
- NextLeap Top Fellow: Awarded a Top Fellow distinction in Product Management (November cohort) out of 200+ global submissions for his Spotify active subscriber growth teardown.
- BroadSoft Rookie of the Year (2016): Recognized for exceptional engineering contributions to device provisioning workflows.
- Visual Studio Code Contributor: Active volunteer contributor to the Microsoft Visual Studio Code open-source community.
Personal Interests & Causes
Sumit actively supports community-driven organizations and volunteers for several humanitarian causes:
- Animal Welfare & Environmental Advocacy.
- Economic Empowerment, Children’s Education, and Health.
- Scientific Literacy and Technical Mentorship.
External Links
- Official Website: sumitkar.in
- LinkedIn Profile: linkedin.com/in/timusrak