Ran Gao
Software Technical Lead at Cisco Meraki
Greater Ottawa Metropolitan Area Canada
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolRan Gao is a Software Technical Lead with 10 years of experience building networked systems and cloud-managed switching features at Cisco Meraki. He brings deep backend and systems expertise from roles at Cisco and Meraki, where he focused on database access layers, device-scale tooling, YANG model transformations, and integrating Catalyst switches into Meraki cloud management. Ran is an active open-source contributor to high-profile projects like Apache Pulsar and Kafka-on-Pulsar, where he implemented and optimized transaction handling and managed-ledger configuration to improve performance and correctness. He combines rigorous engineering (honors Software Engineering from McGill) with a practical focus on observability, testing, and backwards compatibility. Colleagues know him for tackling low-level protocol and state-management challenges and for turning complex infrastructure requirements into reliable, testable features. Based in the Ottawa area, he blends carrier-grade systems experience with a hands-on approach to improving distributed messaging and switch management.
10 years of coding experience
10 years of employment as a software developer
Bachelor's Degree, Honor Software Engineering, Bachelor's Degree, Honor Software Engineering at McGill University
Github Skills (17)
unit-testing10
transaction10
back-end-development10
java10
apache-bookkeeper10
javas10
transactionscope10
apache-kafka10
transaction-manager10
apache-pulsar10
messaging9
zookeeper9
queuing9
pubsub9
streaming9
Programming languages (10)
Github contributions (5)
apache/pulsar
Dec 2019 - Dec 2022
Apache Pulsar - distributed pub-sub messaging system
Role in this project:
Backend Developer & Database Engineer
Backend Developer & Database EngineerContributions:2 releases, 1035 reviews, 173 commits in 3 years
Contributions summary:Ran primarily contributed to the Apache Pulsar SQL project by exposing and configuring managed ledger and bookkeeper client settings. Their work involved modifying configuration files and adding unit tests to verify the default values of the configurations. The user's contributions focused on improving the performance of data reading in relation to the backend, particularly in areas of managed ledgers and their interaction with databases.
apache-pulsarpubsubpulsarmessagingstreaming
streamnative/kop
Jan 2021 - Apr 2022
Kafka-on-Pulsar - A protocol handler that brings native Kafka protocol to Apache Pulsar
Role in this project:Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:81 reviews, 41 commits, 62 PRs in 1 year 3 months
Contributions summary:Ran primarily focused on implementing and refining transaction-related features within the Kafka-on-Pulsar (KoP) project. Their contributions involved initializing transaction classes, handling offset commits, and managing transaction markers. Furthermore, the user improved the transaction state management and optimized the related code components, including ProducerIdManager. These changes indicate a strong focus on improving the core functionality of the KoP implementation for transaction support.
apache-pulsarkafkaprotocol-handlerpulsarapache-kafka
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