Santosh Gandilall
Software Specialist | Dot Connector | Curiosity-Driven | The Quiet Linchpin | Creative Director Of Code
Complete Profile
A comprehensive overview of my professional experience, skills, education, and achievements.
👋 About
Accomplished Software Specialist with 15+ years of experience building gaming and financial platforms. Distributed systems, cloud infrastructure (AWS/Azure), and microservices are my daily territory. Led teams across multiple regions, cut production incidents through structured testing and monitoring, and shipped production systems that held up under real load. Actively building and integrating AI-powered features into products and using AI tooling throughout the development workflow.
Core Specializations
Background
Based in Durban, South Africa, my career has run from banking platforms processing real-time payments to gaming infrastructure used by players worldwide. The common thread is systems that hold up under serious load.
The technical work I'm proudest of usually involved finding a way out of an expensive corner. The Titan vShim let 200+ legacy games run on a new platform without a multi-year rewrite. Forge, the AWS-based remote gaming system I co-built, handled over 1,000 bets per second per operator and cut deployment cycles from days to hours. The Archon Config Testing Framework reduced Sev A incidents by 80%. I spoke at GDC 2023 on the architecture behind it. These aren't CV lines. They're systems I built, shipped, and still stand behind.
AI is part of how I build. I design and ship AI features in production systems and use AI tooling throughout the development workflow. It lets a small team move faster and spend more time on the decisions that actually need a person.
The people part matters as much as the code. I've mentored engineers across South Africa, Europe, and India, ran a training programme in Pune, and worked with distributed teams across time zones. Three of those engineers were promoted. I care about building teams that keep working well after I've moved on to the next thing.
What Drives Me
🎯 Technical Excellence
I care about code that's functional but also readable by whoever inherits it. Good architecture has to survive contact with reality, not just the original design session.
🚀 Continuous Innovation
I follow new technology closely but I'm selective about what I adopt. Cloud-native patterns and zero-downtime deployments aren't interesting because they're new — they're interesting because they solve real problems.
👥 Team Growth
Some of the work I'm most proud of has nothing to do with code. Watching an engineer go from uncertain to trusted has stayed with me longer than most architectural decisions.
🤖 AI in Practice
I've shipped AI features in production and use AI tooling daily. It's useful for some things and actively unhelpful for others. The skill is knowing which is which before you've spent two hours on a suggestion that just seemed right.
💡 Business Impact
I've spent enough time in stakeholder meetings to know that technical excellence counts for nothing if it doesn't connect to something the business actually cares about. I make that translation a deliberate part of how I work.
💼 Experience
Software Specialist - Game Technology - Forge
Focus: Forge: An AWS-based remote gaming system for operators, studios, and operations designed to improve scalability, resilience, and reduce technical debt.
- Co-architected Forge with distributed microservices on AWS, improving scalability and cutting operational downtime, supporting over 1k bets per second per operator.
- Introduced contract-first API development (OpenAPI), cutting onboarding time for new services.
- Set up DevOps automation (Nuke, Azure pipelines, AWS Secrets Manager), reducing deployment cycles from days to hours.
- Co-presented at GDC on Game Client & Service Development on Forge, strengthening partner engagement, resulting in smooth studio integration of over 40 studios.
- Rolled out the adoption of Testcontainers across teams for reliable local testing environments.
- Set up proactive monitoring with Application Insights for Kubernetes, reducing mean time to resolution for production incidents.
- Mentored developers across multiple regions, contributing to the promotion of 3 mentees and a stronger cross-team delivery capability.
Senior Software Engineer L2 – Game Technology
Focus: A/B Testing: A globally distributed experimentation platform hosted on Azure, allowing studios to test features at scale and optimize player engagement.
- Led architecture and delivery of a globally distributed A/B Testing system on Azure, enabling large-scale live experiments to validate features and improve player retention.
- Used Terraform IaC and automated pipelines to achieve production readiness with no to limited downtime.
Senior Software Engineer L2 - Game Technology (formerly Games Derivco)
Focus: GTP (Game Technology Portal): An enterprise-wide platform used to manage the full lifecycle of online casino games from development, quality assurance, and certification to deployment and operations. GTP Database Refactor: Project to modernize and streamline the Game Technology Portal database.
- Delivered the GTP Database Refactor, implementing EF Core migrations and schema redesign aligned with Microsoft standards, which streamlined development and cut maintenance costs.
- Automated Jira–GitLab linking, improving traceability between issues and code changes across distributed teams.
- Expanded testing quality by expanding Cypress automation coverage, reducing manual QA effort and release risk.
- Ran demos and mentoring sessions to embed modern database and testing practices across the team.
Senior Software Engineer L1 – Game Technology
Focus: Titan: A unified game launcher and integration framework for migration and modernization of legacy titles. Archon: A configuration service for online games that centralizes feature toggles and game settings across brands and markets. Archon enabled faster deployments, reduced misconfigurations, and improved operational stability.
- Engineered the Titan vShim layer, enabling 200+ legacy games to run unmodified on the new Titan (The Unified Game Launcher) platform, saving an estimated multi-year rewrite.
- Built the Archon Config Testing Framework in Gauge, reducing Sev A incidents by 80% and giving operators confidence to roll out config changes without fear of regression.
- Streamlined Archon Multi-Dimension, halving duplicate configurations for studios running multi-brand deployments.
- Ran offshore training in Pune, India, building delivery capacity in the remote team.
Senior Software Engineer L1 – Mobile Downloads
Focus: Mobile Downloads Android Client: A platform for distributing casino games to players’ Android devices, enabling operators to deliver game content outside of traditional app stores.
- Delivered and automated Android client applications via Octopus Deploy, cutting release cycle time.
- Built a dynamic client configuration system and wrapped lobby, making client updates faster and more flexible without requiring full redeployments.
Software Engineer – Bingo
Focus: Bingo: A popular online gambling product that offers number-drawing games with themed variations (e.g., Immortal Romance Bingo, Granny Bingo).
- Delivered multiple Bingo titles, including Immortal Romance Bingo and Granny Bingo.
- Built supporting services such as dispatchers, voucher redemption, and eJabberD integrations, expanding operator promotional capabilities.
- Collaborated with product teams to ship releases that met regulatory, performance, and entertainment standards across multiple markets.
Software Engineer – Java (Postilion / Realtime)
Focus: Postilion: A real-time electronic payments platform used globally by banks and financial institutions to process ATM, POS, and online transactions securely and reliably. Online Personal & Business Banking Portal: A web-based platform enabling customers to securely manage accounts, payments, and business transactions.
- Developed and supported real-time banking integrations (ISO8583 protocol) for Postilion, supporting transaction processing across multiple financial institutions.
- Added features to the online personal and business banking portal, including bulk payments, report generation, and secure authentication.
- Promoted to Johannesburg as Technical Lead for client-facing payment portals, owning requirements coordination and delivery.
- Designed database models, APIs, and UI layers to meet customer specifications, improving transaction throughput.
- Mentored issue managers, introduced structured incident analysis, and improved SLA compliance for critical financial clients.
Software Developer & IT Assistant (Vacation Work)
Focus:
- Developed and deployed a stock tracking solution for Quality Products, replacing manual inventory processes.
- Provided IT support and managed sysPro/database backups for Quality Products, with no to limited downtime to stock or sales operations.
⚡ Skills
Core Engineering & Architecture
Distributed systems, microservices, and high-performance gaming and payments platforms.
Programming & Frameworks
Cloud & DevOps
AWS
Azure
CI/CD
Observability
Databases
Testing & Quality
Leadership & Mentorship
Mentorship, technical interviews, cross-regional training, documentation & knowledge sharing.
Innovation
🎓 Education
Bachelor of Science (BSc), Computer Science, Information Systems and Technology with Certificate of Merit
University of Kwa-Zulu Natal • Durban, ZA
📢 Talks & Presentations
Game Client & Service Development on Forge
Game Developers Conference (GDC)
2023
Co-presented technical architecture and development patterns for building game clients and services on the Forge cloud-native remote gaming platform.
📬 Let's Connect
I'm always interested in discussing new opportunities, technical challenges, or collaboration