SURENDRA BALU

People & technical leader / Hands-on builder

Deep expertise.
Bold thinking.
Real impact.

I’m Surendra Balu, a Principal PLM Lead connecting enterprise platforms, cloud, and applied AI. I bring 10 years of managing people, the technical depth to build, and the ownership to deliver.

Explore my impact Let’s talk

Columbus, Ohio · Open to remote & hybrid roles

Surendra Balu

Builder.
Architect.
People leader.

Technical depth.
People leadership that delivers.
21+YEARS OF
ENTERPRISE IMPACT
Cloud & AI
Enterprise PLM

Perspective across industries

From energy and automotive to pharma and medical devices, I’ve helped teams connect product data, engineering workflows, and business needs.

How I lead
21+years in enterprise PLM
$3.7Mannual savings from AWS migration
99.99%platform availability on AWS

01 / Leadership in practice

Lead with clarity.
Build with purpose.
Deliver together.

Ten of my 21 years have been spent managing people: a global PLM Operations team, a production support team of about 20 contractors, and earlier, teams of developers. I lead the way I build: set a clear direction, give people ownership of their work, and stay close enough to the engineering to clear the path. That is how I connect the people doing the work with the outcomes the business needs.

See how I take an idea to production
10 years

in people leadership

Multiple teams

led across development and operations

Surendra Balu
People & technical leader. Hands-on builder.
01

Build teams that own the outcome

Manage people while staying close to the technical work. Set clear priorities, give people real ownership, and lead global and offshore teams around timelines, resources, and program goals.

In practice Managed a global PLM Operations team and a production support team of ~20 resources, and led multiple development teams.

02

Turn ambiguity into direction

Lead feasibility, business cases, and solution architecture. Translate stakeholder needs into a practical plan with clear technical choices.

In practice First enterprise PLM implementation, from business case to go-live.

03

Bring commercial judgment

Evaluate partners and make investment tradeoffs with the business in mind, connecting platform capability to cost and long-term value.

In practice Led vendor selection and negotiated a 20% reduction in total cost of ownership.

04

Stay close to the engineering

Lead through technical credibility: architecture, code reviews, automation, and production operations. Carry responsibility beyond the launch.

In practice Hands-on AWS operations, release automation, and applied AI support.

02 / Technical expertise

Deep in the details.
Connected by design.

PLM is my foundation. Cloud, automation, and AI extend what I can deliver from engineering workflows to the infrastructure behind them.

Enterprise PLM01

From product data to a working digital thread.

Led a first enterprise PLM implementation from feasibility and vendor selection through architecture, migration, and production go-live of 3DEXPERIENCE R2025x with SolidWorks Connected.

5 → 2 hourspart-release cycle time
3DEXPERIENCE / ENOVIASolidWorksData migrationChange control
Cloud & DevOps02

Architecture that holds up in production.

Own multi-account AWS infrastructure with Oracle RDS and dual-AZ availability. In a previous role, migrated PLM to AWS, built deployment pipelines, and used infrastructure as code to reduce recovery time.

15 minrecovery objectives in a previous role
AWSTerraformBlue/green deploymentDynatrace
Integration & automation03

Less manual work. More reliable releases.

Built an Altium-to-3DEXPERIENCE BOM converter and a custom SolidWorks release pipeline. Currently architecting an event-driven PLM-to-ERP/MES integration platform on n8n and AWS.

~90%less manual deliverable effort
n8nEventBridge / SQS / LambdaREST APIsPython / Java
Applied AI04

AI that earns its place in the workflow.

Built a Slack-native PLM support agent on a self-hosted Ollama / MLX stack. LLM tool-calling brings platform support into the conversation, cutting first response from hours to seconds.

~60%of routine support requests deflected
Agentic AILLM tool-callingOllama / MLXSelf-hosted inference

Technical depth, with commercial ownership. I also build the business case, lead vendor selection, and align delivery with the people who use and fund the platform.

03 / Measurable impact

Engineering decisions.
Business outcomes.

Faster releases, lower infrastructure costs, and less work around the work. Selected results across enterprise PLM and cloud programs.

Business case$2.7M+

Projected annual engineering-efficiency savings.

Cloud migration$3.7M

Annual savings from re-platforming 3DEXPERIENCE on AWS.

CAD performance50%

Faster CAD model loads, returning ~1 hour per engineer per day.

ECAD integration~4 hrs

Manual BOM re-entry removed per release.

Part-release cycle

Hours per release

Before5 hrs
After2 hrs
60% faster releases. Estimated value of ~$150K annually across ~500 part releases.

Release pipeline failures

Share of daily jobs

Before~60%
After0%
A reliable deliverable pipeline. Replaced failing vendor jobs with custom SolidWorks automation.

Maintenance downtime

Hours per maintenance window

Before4 h
After0 h
Maintenance without interruption. Blue/green architecture eliminated the downtime window.

Results reflect different initiatives and periods. Projected savings and estimates are labeled; figures are not additive.

04 / From strategy to execution

From the first
“why” to go-live.
And beyond.

I connect business analysis, solution architecture, technical delivery, and ongoing operations across the full PLM lifecycle.

20%reduction in total cost of ownership negotiated at vendor selection

  1. 01

    Build the business case

    Quantify engineering bottlenecks, test feasibility, and give leadership a defensible investment case.

  2. 02

    Select the right partners

    Run the RFP, evaluate vendors, and negotiate cost against the outcomes the business needs.

  3. 03

    Translate requirements

    Turn stakeholder needs into functional and technical specifications, balancing standard capability, configuration, and customization.

  4. 04

    Design the solution

    Define the data model, release process, change control, and migration strategy.

  5. 05

    Engineer the platform

    Choose the hosting model and design cloud infrastructure, integrations, deployment, and recovery.

  6. 06

    Deliver. Operate. Improve.

    Coordinate teams through go-live and stay accountable for availability, performance, and day-to-day engineering needs.

05 / Experience

A career built on
growing responsibility.

21 years of technical experience, 10 of them managing people, from hands-on engineering to principal-level platform ownership.

CURRENT

Feb 2025 — Present

Remote

Principal PLM Lead

Mainspring Energy

  • Led the company’s first enterprise PLM end to end: built the business case ($2.7M+ projected annual savings) that won executive approval, ran the RFP and vendor selection (20% lower total cost of ownership), and took 3DEXPERIENCE R2025x on AWS to production.
  • Championed a self-hosted architecture over SaaS, removing cloud latency and vendor-dictated downtime; own multi-account AWS operations at 99.99% availability.
  • Built a self-hosted AI support agent that deflects ~60% of routine requests and frees ~8–10 admin hours weekly.
  • Architecting the Mainspring Integration Platform for event-driven PLM-to-ERP/MES data flows; built an ECAD BOM converter the implementation vendor had deemed infeasible.
PEOPLE LEADERSHIP

Jan 2020 — Jan 2025

Columbus, Ohio

Staff PLM Technical Analyst

Rivian Automotive

  • Managed the global PLM Operations team.
  • Migrated 3DEXPERIENCE from on-premises to AWS, delivering $3.7M in annual cost savings.
  • Cut CAD model load times by 50%, saving design release engineers ~1 hour a day and contributing $1.4M in annual savings.
  • Eliminated the 4-hour maintenance window with blue/green deployments, and reduced recovery time and recovery point objectives to 15 minutes with infrastructure as code.
  • Built deployment pipelines and Dynatrace monitoring, turning hours of troubleshooting into minutes.
PEOPLE LEADERSHIP

Jul 2018 — Dec 2019

Columbus, Ohio

Sr Software Solutions Architect

Goken America

  • Managed the production support team of about 20 contractors.
  • Gathered requirements and designed 3DEXPERIENCE solutions based on user needs.
  • Stood up production ENOVIA 2018x with 3DPassport, Dashboard, FCS, Exalead, and 3D Indexing, and tuned database and server performance.
Earlier experience · 2005–2018 · Tata Technologies, Smith & Nephew, Abbott, and more

Dec 2017 — Jun 2018

Detroit, Michigan

Senior PLM Consultant

xLM Solutions

  • Worked with stakeholders to turn business needs into technical solutions, adapting ENOVIA applications to each customer’s requirements.
  • Tuned database, FCS, Exalead, and 3D Index server performance.

May 2016 — Dec 2017

Detroit, Michigan

PLM Systems Support Senior Analyst

Tata Technologies

  • Led daily stand-ups with offshore teams, coordinating timelines, resources, and communication to keep delivery on track.
  • Ran feasibility studies with clients to balance out-of-the-box capability, configuration, and customization, and authored functional and technical specifications.

Jun 2014 — Sep 2015

Memphis, Tennessee

Senior Technical Consultant

Smith & Nephew

  • Led a complex data migration from Documentum to ENOVIA 2014x, building Adaplet programs to preserve data integrity.
  • Defined requirements and recommended the right mix of out-of-the-box, configuration, and customization for ENOVIA.

Apr 2013 — Jun 2014

Chicago, Illinois

PLM Consultant

Abbott

  • Led MatrixOne customizations and upgrades that improved system performance and integrated with enterprise systems.
  • Led unit testing, code reviews, and performance tuning, reducing production issues found during UAT.
PEOPLE LEADERSHIP

Aug 2005 — Mar 2013

PLM Engineer

Additional experience

  • Led a team of 15 developers from 2008 to 2013.
  • Earlier PLM engineering experience. Details available on request.

06 / Technical toolkit

The tools behind the work.

Platform depth, supported by cloud engineering, integration, and AI capabilities.

PLM & product engineering

3DEXPERIENCE / ENOVIA through R2025xTeamcenterCATIASolidWorks ConnectedBMIDEMQLxCADAltium ECAD–MCADData migration & ETL

Cloud & infrastructure

AWSTerraformKubernetesDevOpsOracle / RDSPostgreSQLApache / TomEEDynatraceCybersecurity

Integration & automation

n8nWorkatoREST APIsJavaPythonSQLEventBridge / SQS / LambdaECS FargateJIRASolidWorks API

AI & machine learning

Agentic AILLM tool-callingOllama / MLXSelf-hosted LLMsPyTorchDeep learningNLPComputer vision

Let’s connect

Complex challenge?
Let’s move it forward.

I’m open to Director and Principal conversations across PLM, platform architecture, and applied AI. Let’s talk about the technical direction, the team you need to build, and the hands-on execution your next chapter needs.

EMAILsurebalu@gmail.com LINKEDINConnect on LinkedIn