Colombo, Sri Lanka

Nuwan Kanakarathna

Experience

Engineer → Pearson → CTO → Head of Engineering.

One career spine across product engineering — consolidated the way it reads on my resume. Advisory work sits separately below.

Jun 2021 – Jul 2026

Head of Engineering → Engineering Manager, Platform Experience

Qoria

Australia · Sri Lanka

TypeScript · Go · Python · React

AWS · GCP · Terraform · GenAI · CI/CD

  • Continuous employment within Qoria Group (Octopus BI → Qoria). Progression: Software Development Manager → Head of Engineering → Engineering Manager, Platform Experience.
  • As Engineering Manager — Platform Experience (global), led platform, DevEx, FinOps, and GenAI programs to uplift engineering maturity across 200+ engineering professionals.
  • As Head of Engineering (Qoria Lanka / Octopus BI), scaled a 25+ person engineering center and aligned Sri Lanka delivery with Australian product strategy.
  • Drove platform/DevEx initiatives reducing friction through golden paths, CI/CD, and observability; built transparent FinOps and GenAI productivity programs (GetDX, Copilot, Gemini, Rovo).
  • Chaired Execution & Innovation Group across Product, Engineering, Platform, and QA; owned multi-team roadmaps with executive risk visibility.
  • Engineering Manager, Platform Experience (Jun–Jul 2026): global platform/DevEx uplift across 200+; role concluded following organizational restructure.

Feb 2019 – Mar 2022

Technology Director | Shareholder | CTO

OS Trio Bhd

Sri Lanka · India · Thailand · Malaysia · UK

C# · .NET Core

Azure · RabbitMQ · MSSQL · Event Hub · Data Lake

  • Led technology vision and multi-country engineering across five markets; scaled the company to operational excellence and successful parent handover.
  • Directed enterprise ERP delivery on .NET Core, Azure Event Hub, and Azure Data Lake.
  • Built Orbit, a distributed data platform for 100+ business entities — reliable POS/ops data transfer into ERP across regions.
  • Established release, quality, security, DR, and multi-country deployment standards.

Jul 2015 – Feb 2019

Technical Specialist → Senior Technical Specialist

Pearson

USA · Sri Lanka

C# · Erlang · Python

Kafka · RabbitMQ · Cassandra · AWS · S3 · EMR

  • Continuous tenure owning business-critical Pearson core platform verticals — progressed from Technical Specialist to Senior Technical Specialist.
  • Technical owner for a .NET-backed distributed caching platform serving several million users at peak.
  • Technical owner for a RabbitMQ queue platform — terabyte-capacity production clusters with real-time access.
  • Led streaming analytics across Kafka, Storm, Cassandra, and AWS (S3, EMR); Rapid Response Team (Denver) for production incidents.

Jun 2010 – Jul 2015

Engineer → Senior Technical Leader

Duo Software

Sri Lanka

C# · Go

PostgreSQL · Couchbase · Redis · Elasticsearch · AWS

  • Continuous tenure from Associate Engineer through Senior Technical Leader — platforms for telecom, banking, and enterprise customers across South Asia.
  • Delivered 400% data transfer lift via Go middleware and 170% performance gain via distributed caching.
  • Built Go rule engine and Digin near-real-time BI forecasting; architected Duo V5 platform/SDK.
  • Delivered enterprise call-center and subscriber platforms (including DFCC Vardhana Bank); regional implementations across Nepal, Indonesia, and India.

Consulting & advisory

Separate from full-time career roles — part-time, concurrent with primary employment.

Apr 2023 – Nov 2024

Consultant & Senior Architect

Insighture

Sri Lanka · Australia · Singapore

C# · Python

Terraform · AWS · GCP

Cloud architecture, FinOps, security, and AI/ML delivery

Oct 2022 – Mar 2023

Senior Architect

Butterfly Systems

Australia

C# · .NET

AWS · MSSQL

Product scalability, AWS security hardening, and compliance

Jun 2022 – Sep 2022

Chief Architect

Optimus R2

Sri Lanka

C# · .NET

Engineering process design, SDLC uplift, and team capability

2020 – 2021

Senior Architect

i-Context

Sri Lanka

C# · .NET Core

Azure · PostgreSQL

.NET modernization and Azure migration PoCs

Education

Technology, security, and business.

2021 – 2022

MBA — Business Management (WES)

Asia e University

2010 – 2011

PGDip — Information Security

University of Colombo

2007 – 2010

B.Sc. — Information Technology

SLIIT

Certifications

Credentials by specialty.