Principal Software Architect
16+ years building distributed systems, event-driven pipelines, and secure microservice platforms for financial services and global logistics — from hands-on Java services at Equifax to architecting cloud-native, authenticated microservice systems at scale, with a growing line of independent AI-native projects.
An AI-powered flight congestion intelligence dashboard that optimizes for outcome, not just price. Surfaces FAA ground-stop programs, airport congestion scores, and 7-day forecasts, then ranks departure windows using graph optimization across cost, time, and congestion. Falls back gracefully to BTS statistical models when live data is unavailable.
An 8-agent AI-native pipeline that extracts structured rate data from PDFs, scanned images, Excel files, and HTML tables. Built for full auditability back to source, cost-aware LLM routing, and deterministic, reproducible output.
A simulation engine modeling how trucks arrive, queue, and get assigned to docks across a working day — realistic arrival distributions, service-time variability, and constraints like equipment type, dock capability, and priority loads. Used to test real-time dock-assignment strategies and see how small logic changes move congestion and idle time. Heading toward a lightweight planning tool for yard/dock managers: live truck-to-dock recommendations, early bottleneck detection, and "what-if" scenario testing without touching live operations.
"Latha is the kind of engineer that every product owner hopes for: insightful, proactive, pragmatic, and deeply invested in building the right solution within the ever-present time constraints. She was a trusted thought partner whose perspective made our product and our team stronger."
I am delighted to write this letter of reference for Ponnilatha Thangaraja (Latha). I had the privilege of working closely with Latha for about 6 years while I was a Product Manager at CargoSphere dba WiseTech Global. During that time I was consistently impressed by her technical expertise, leadership, and professionalism.
Latha is an incredibly talented software engineer. She has an impressive ability to combine deep technical knowledge with sound judgement and strong leadership skills. She delivers comprehensive, high-quality solutions to complex problems while keeping the end user and the broader business objectives in mind. She is someone I trusted completely to tackle our most difficult problems.
Beyond her technical abilities, Latha is an outstanding team leader. People naturally look to her for guidance, not just because of her title, but because of her expertise, kindness, dependability, and willingness to mentor. She directs her team with respect and confidence and keeps them focused on the right things at the right times to deliver results.
As a Product Manager, I valued our partnership tremendously. Latha is the kind of engineer that every product owner hopes for: insightful, proactive, pragmatic, and deeply invested in building the right solution within the ever-present time constraints. She was a trusted thought partner whose perspective made our product and our team stronger.
I would enthusiastically welcome an opportunity to work with Latha again and recommend her without hesitation. Any organization would be fortunate to have her, and I am confident she will make a meaningful impact wherever she goes next.
— Meghan Barni, Former Product Manager, CargoSphere
A simplified version of the underlying queueing mechanics: trucks arrive at random (Poisson process), each dock serves one truck at a time with variable service duration, and a truck waits for the next free dock. Adjust the inputs to see how throughput, wait time, and dock utilization respond — this is the same dynamic the full simulation explores at much higher fidelity.
Languages
Go, .NET 8, Java, Python
Cloud & platforms
Kubernetes, Docker, Kafka, Redis, BigQuery, PostgreSQL
AI & automation
GitHub Copilot, LangChain, retrieval-based systems, model-context servers, multi-agent pipelines
Security & identity
SSO, OAuth2/OIDC, API Gateway, Backend-for-Frontend (BFF), service mesh/mTLS, token introspection, RBAC/ABAC
Legacy enterprise
Java SOA, Axis2 web services, Hybris
DevOps
GitHub Actions, Jenkins, Ansible, Azure DevOps