Makarand Gokhale

Makarand Gokhale has over 30 years of work experience in the technology industry. Makarand currently holds the position of Head of Database Engineering at DataStax since April 2021.

Prior to that, Makarand worked at VMware for several years. Makarand served as the Senior Director of Engineering, End User Computing from September 2014 to April 2021. In this role, they focused on bringing application delivery to the cloud through performant and scalable microservices. Makarand led the development of core app management technology and played a key role in simplifying application management for on-premise and public cloud.

Before their time at VMware, Makarand worked at Pivotal Inc. as the Senior Director of Engineering, Real-Time Data Products from April 2013 to September 2014. Makarand was responsible for leading the development of GemFire-XD, an in-memory distributed SQL database. This platform supported high-performance applications and paved the way for building transactional and big data applications in a single platform.

From May 2010 to March 2013, Makarand held the position of Senior Director of Engineering at VMware. Makarand brought a distributed in-memory data grid with SQL to the market and spearheaded the development of SQLFire, an in-memory SQL database. Makarand also integrated and grew the GemStone team within VMware, resulting in significant revenue growth.

Earlier in their career, Makarand worked at GemStone Systems as the GM Engineering and Technology Delivery from May 2005 to May 2010. Makarand streamlined the engineering organization and focused on innovation, enterprise readiness, and scale. Their efforts led to the recognition of GemFire as a premier in-memory data platform.

Makarand also served as the VP of Engineering at PostPath from November 2003 to March 2005. Here, they built the engineering organization from the ground up and oversaw the development of the company's flagship product. Additionally, they held leadership roles at @TheMoment, Inc., Sun Microsystems, Arachnid Software Inc, and Intergraph earlier in their career.

Throughout their various roles, Makarand has demonstrated their expertise in engineering, product development, team growth, and technology strategy alignment. Makarand has a strong background in database technologies, cloud computing, and microservices.

Makarand Gokhale has a Bachelor of Technology (BTech) degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. Additionally, they hold a Master of Science (M.S.) degree in Computer Science and Engineering from West Virginia University. Makarand has also obtained a certification in Kubernetes Essentials from Linux Academy in May 2021.