JK

JK : Jayakumar 42 : Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything

A software engineer who wakes up to optimize DevEx + OpsEx with a platform to deploy & operate softwares that are fast & reliable.

Platform Engineer, Strategy Consultant & Solution Architect, Co-Founder of Pickle.io & Full Stack Developer, Curious Coder & Symmathecist

Currently, solving problems for global clients of Thoughtworks.

Platform Engineer

I’m a hands on platform engineer along with strategy consulting:

• Code using Python, Node.js, Shell script
• CI/CD pipelines using GitHub Actions / GitLab
• Cloud infrastructure using AWS for micro services, big data reporting, and AI/ML workloads
• Scalable and reliable compute using Linux, Docker, Kubernetes
• Stateful, streaming and event driven applications using Postgres, Kafka
• IaC using Terraform, Gitops using ArgoCD, Chatops using Slack
• Observability using Grafana, Loki, Prometheus

Strategy Consultant & Solution Architect

I’ve consulted and created solutions for global clients including wall street banks:

• Software Delivery Platform Transformations
• Trunk Based Development, Continuous Integration, Continuous Deployment
• Executed Cloud Migrations, Cloud Bursting
• Modernized CI/CD pipelines for micro services
• Migrated regulatory reporting workloads to AWS
• Architected B2B cloud services brokerage platform for leading ICT distributor in Australia
• Automated patching of VMs for managed service provider
• Mobile Geolocation API for a startup

Co-Founder of Pickle.io & Full Stack Developer

I’ve envisioned, developed full stack, launched and operated multi-tenant SaaS platforms for Pickle.io

• Picklebots : Auto healing platform for infrastructure incidents
• Cloudpickle : Multi cloud management platform for self service provisioning of cloud resources catalog

Curious Coder & Symmathecist

I started coding with Logo at the age of 10. I’ve used more than a dozen programming languages. I’ve written code and debugged it on paper (when I didn’t own a computer), text editor, IDE. I can code alone or comfortably pair with fellow engineers. These days, with the advent of LLMs, I’m experimenting pairing with AI coding tools to shape up code much faster.

The answer is 42. What’s the ultimate question? To me, it’s the software. I view software as an extension of the human mind. It’s a medium that allows me to externalize my ideas, shape it up and bring them to life. I code to enjoy the process of creation and achieve the outcome while doing so. I remain in flow state while coding and troubleshooting a software. The software learns from me and I learn from the software. In the medium of software, I’m a Symmathecist.

What am I learning in 2025 ?

Ruby, Rails, Rust:

• Got curious with Rails after listening to DHH (this and this). LLMs are already in my list. So, learning Rails 8 to productionize an AI enabled web app.

• It’s been a while coding with a statically typed language. Rust keeps bringing back my memories of C. Rust’s syntaxes having a flavour of C, Python, Javascript with modern safety nets to detect mistakes at compile time tempts me enough to get started. NoGC, sensible defaults like immutable data, safe borrowing, traits, closures, slices, vector, iterator, option, macros, blocks as expression, … I’m in.