Nikhil Rao

Setting direction for next-gen MX/TRIO ASIC and infrastructure to support Multi-Service Edge needs along with AI WAN Edge, Multi-cloud Gateway use cases and seamless cloud on-ramp. Bringing engineering, architecture, and GTM teams together to execute and deliver for customers. Owning portfolio strategy and business performance to grow the business, strengthen our position, and increase platform adoption.

Driving product strategy, roadmap, AI & Secure WAN innovation, and GTM execution.

- Senior Product Manager for Juniper’s $1B+ MX portfolio - Focused on Multi-Service Edge (MSE) solutions for Tier 1 Service Providers in the Americas (with additional engagement in T-2/T-3) - Own the product roadmap and execution aligned with secure WAN use cases for Federal accounts in the US and globally Lead go-to-market execution as GTM lead for MX Product Line, overseeing quarterly and annual business performance tracking. Represented Juniper at MWC 2025 in Barcelona, showcasing AIOps-driven WAN strategy and Juniper’s WAN hardware portfolio, engaging with over 50 customers including CXO-level executives

- Product Manager for Modular MX10K and MX304. - Part of the team responsible for defining the next-gen Trio ASIC for the MX series 💡 - Lead Product Manager for Cloud Edge use cases (VPC Edge & AI/ML Gateway) and Federal WAN Winner 2022 CEO Excellence award 🏆

Product Manager, Juniper MX Product Line - Managed P&L for MX960, MX480, MX240, and MX2K portfolio, a key revenue contributor for Juniper - Led Product Line Management for MX304 from concept to successful market launch - Expertise in business case development, customer requirements, product adoption, pricing, competitive analysis, and GTM strategy - Directed marketing collateral and sales training initiatives to drive growth across cloud, enterprise, service provider, and data center sectors

Led end-of-life strategy for 200+ legacy MX SKUs, ensuring seamless customer migration and portfolio optimization, delivering significant cost savings Developed comprehensive migration framework, effectively communicating next-gen hardware benefits and technology advancements Directed competitive analysis, TCO evaluations, margin assessments, demand forecasting, and business tracking to inform strategic decisions Served as primary PLM liaison for Service Provider business in the India+ region

Summary: - Lead developer for complex Packet-Forwarding-Engine (PFE) infrastructure and forwarding features to build large-scale distributed data center networking (L2/L3) switches - Hands on experience in Virtualization, Multi-threaded & Multi-process Software modules. Hands on Experience: - Worked on Packet-Forwarding-Engine (PFE) infrastructure and forwarding feature for QFX Top-of-Rack (TOR) switching platform based on Broadcom Trident/Tomahawk family line. - Worked on various components of data center switching Architecture. - Good understanding of KVM, qemu, Libvirt, Red hat Virtualization & Hypervisor caching. > Libvirt and QEMU Performance Tweaks for KVM Guests > ISSU (In-Service Software Upgrade) / NSSU (Nonstop Software Upgrade) on Junos Prodcuts > Inter-member communication infra for Juniper's next-gen Virtual Chassis products (QFX5K) > Multithreaded Software Forwarding Packet Daemon to handle the exception packets & Packet Forwarding Software > Virtualization / KVM on CentOS / Wind River Linux > Large-scale distributed data center networking (L2/L3) switch and Virtual Chassis Fabric

Part of Junos Kernel team - DCD, building software for next generation networking infrastructure. DCD is one of the important daemons which is involved in configuring physical/pseudo interfaces of JUNOS systems. DCD was created mainly to reduce the amount of configuration processing otherwise the Kernel was required to do. Its main task is to read the applications provided interfaces configuration, validate it and configure the system accordingly. • Designed and developed solutions and worked closely with product team on new features for the NPI called LEGO to enable customers to make API calls to do operations usually achieved via CLI. Business Amplification award for planning and executing overall solution with cross team collaboration, Continuous support , Winning customer confidence and positively impacting business.

Senior developer part of Oracle Internet Directory and Replication server team. OID (Oracle Internet Directory) - https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E28280_01/admin.1111/e10029/concepts.htm#i1031276 Implemented - Cluster based set up of OID for high availability - Replication entry exclusion filters support for OID replication - Performance tuning related to Caching mechanism & - Debugging complex performance issues in cloud related to OID server in multi threading and multi process architecture. Technical Skills • Programming Languages: C, C++, Scripting (Shell and Python) • Expertise in Multi-threaded & Multi-process programming. • Good experience working in GDB, Linux internals

Software developer part of Fusion middleware product for Cisco (NDS earlier) Contributed in developing an • Global search agregator • Peripheral Device Manager • Serial Port Communication Using my knowledge of C, C++ programming, Multi-threading and OS internals.