I'm Ram Chevendra — a Senior Software Engineering Manager in fintech, based just outside Dallas in Argyle, Texas. By day, I lead engineering teams building financial services systems with a commitment to changing banking for good. By night (and during nap times), I write about what I'm learning along the way.
What I write about here
This blog sits at the intersection of three things I care deeply about:
Engineering leadership
I write about the craft of managing engineers — team topology, technical decision-making, coaching, and the messy human parts of the job that no framework fully captures. Fintech shapes how I think about tradeoffs, but the lessons travel.
AI in the enterprise
I'm endlessly curious about how agentic AI, RAG architectures, and MCP are reshaping engineering work — and what it actually takes to deploy any of this usefully inside a large organization. Expect posts on subagent patterns, PII detection pipelines, document processing with Textract and embeddings, and the realities of evaluating LLM systems when quality really matters.
The long game
I'm ambitious and perpetually learning — always reading, experimenting, or chasing the next idea. I'll share what's working, what isn't, and the frameworks I'm using to think about career growth and staying technical as a leader.
Off the clock
I'm a husband and dad to a toddler and an infant — which means most of my "free time" happens before 6 AM or after bedtime. I run half marathons (five down, chasing a sub-2:00) and have recently gotten curious about golf.
If any of this resonates — whether you're an EM navigating the AI shift, a senior engineer eyeing leadership, or someone building in fintech — I'd love to hear from you.