About

Gautam Rao is a seasoned software engineering manager with over 24 years of experience in the technology industry. He is currently working at Amazon as a Software Engineering Lead, where he leads high-performing software development teams building Amazon's Retail experience. Gautam is passionate about building great digital products, and his previous experience includes working with Huawei and Climate Corporation (Monsanto Subsidiary). At Huawei, Gautam helped develop Voice over IP solutions, which went on to become industry-leading solutions. Later, at Climate Corporation, he led a team that was building the largest digital agriculture platform - FarmRise for the smallholder farmers of the world. Through the FarmRise platform, Gautam aimed to provide digital services to marginal farmers to help them make critical decisions, reducing costs, improving yields, and getting better price realization for their products. Currently, at Amazon, Gautam is leading teams that build and own the technology powering the Amazon Campus programs and Locker programs. The Campus program allows students to order online and pick up their items using Amazon’s campus pickup location. Amazon Prime customers get the added benefit of picking up the items on the same/next day too. These brick-and-mortar sites (CPP) include lockers where students can pick up their products. The pickup centers on campus also have convenience items for students to buy on a whim—from snack foods to essentials. Gautam's role involves owning the design, development, delivery, and operations of the digital platform, hiring, mentoring, and growing engineering managers to lead individual software teams. Gautam has a deep experience in building enterprise products, leading type A teams with proven delivery experience, and collaborating with a wide variety of stakeholders within business and technology teams to drive change required to execute product roadmaps. He has a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science from Bangalore University and a Professional Degree in Information Technology from NIIT University. Gautam's tech stack includes Senior Software Engineer, Software Engineer, product manager, Research Scientist, Integration, and Mobile.