David Pokluda, Ph.D.
Resume
Summary
Principal engineer with extensive experience designing and delivering large-scale distributed systems
and cloud platforms. Proven track record across Azure and AWS building mission-critical services
supporting hundreds of millions of users. Strong in system architecture, service design, cloud security,
and engineering excellence. Mentor, collaborator, and technical leader passionate about building
reliable, scalable, and maintainable solutions.
Skills
Architecture & Systems
Distributed systems, cloud architecture, high-scale service design, scalability & performance,
event-driven and microservices architectures, control-plane and data-plane services, API design,
system decomposition.
Engineering Excellence
Test-driven development, design patterns, SOLID principles, refactoring, CI/CD, domain-driven design,
service resilience, code quality, long-term maintainability.
Leadership & Collaboration
Technical leadership, mentoring, cross-team design reviews, guiding system architecture,
influencing decision-making, driving engineering best practices, partnering with customers
and internal teams.
Communication
Clear written and verbal communication, design documentation, solution proposals, consensus building,
distilling complex ideas into actionable plans.
Patents
Six granted or pending patents in distributed systems, update delivery, and test automation.
Professional Experience
Microsoft – Principal Software Engineer • 2025–Present
Azure Core – Policy and Governance
Lead architecture, design, and implementation of core platform capabilities that help customers
govern and secure their Azure environments at scale.
Technologies: C#, Azure, Cosmos DB, cell-based architecture
Microsoft – Principal Software Engineer • 2024–2025
Security – Sentinel Graph
Worked on Microsoft Sentinel Graph, an exabyte-scale data platform enabling real-time threat
detection across enterprise environments. Focused on distributed data ingestion pipelines and
integration with Microsoft Entra and other security data sources.
Technologies: Data Lake, ADF/IR, ingestion pipelines, C#
Amazon – Senior Software Engineer • 2022–2024
Amazon Store – Product UI
Worked on the product rendering service for Amazon.com, focusing on reliability, performance,
and feature enhancements. Designed and implemented integration with Amazon’s AI-driven multivariate
experimentation platform to enable advanced testing and personalization.
Technologies: Java, JavaScript, TypeScript, AWS, React
Microsoft – Principal Software Engineer • 2018–2022
Azure – Device Update for IoT Hub
Led architecture and design of Device Update for IoT Hub, a new Azure service enabling secure
publishing, processing, and distribution of device updates. Designed the service specification
(OpenAPI) and delivered official SDKs for C#, Java, Python, and TypeScript.
Technologies: C#, Azure, Cosmos DB, Event Hub, IoT Hub, Service Fabric
Microsoft – Principal Software Engineer • 2014–2018
Windows – Delivery Catalog
Designed and built the architecture for a new content delivery service supporting Windows and
Microsoft Store updates. Implemented core publishing services, asynchronous processing pipelines,
and large-scale driver update logic used across millions of devices.
Technologies: C#, Azure Storage, Service Bus
Microsoft – Senior Software Engineer • 2009–2014
Windows – Windows Update
Designed and developed backend services and distributed caching infrastructure powering Windows
Update and the Windows application store, serving over 700 million connected users.
Technologies: C#, SQL Server, AppFabric Caching, REST, WCF
Microsoft – Software Engineer • 2006–2009
Office – Connectivity of Line of Business (LOB)
Designed and implemented the connectivity layer between Office client applications, SharePoint
Server, and various line-of-business systems including SAP and Siebel.
SharePoint Server Storage (2009)
Responsible for Remote Blob Storage (RBS) integration and performance improvements for
SharePoint 2010.
Microsoft – Software Engineer • 2005–2006
Business Solutions – Dynamics AX
Designed and implemented the data import framework and Application Integration Framework (AIF)
components, including gateway services, document services, and the AX Web Service adapter.
Microsoft – SDE/T Lead • 2004–2005
Dynamics AX – Test Infrastructure
Led the Axapta Test Infrastructure and Tools team, delivering the X++ Test Automation Framework (XPF),
Test Case Editor (TCE), and supporting tools.
Developed the XUnit unit testing framework for Dynamics AX and trained engineering teams across
Redmond and Vedbaek.
Education
Silesian University – Ph.D. & M.Sc.
Discrete Dynamical Systems and Chaos
Published research in mathematical journals; presented at international conferences.