Naga Surya Teja Thallam, cloud and big data leader at Salesforce, Cisco, and Seagate, has driven global-scale infrastructure, automation, and innovation.
Naga Surya Teja Thallam
In the high-stakes world of cloud technology and big data, a handful of engineers have quietly powered the platforms that the modern economy runs on. Among them is Naga Surya Teja Thallam, a Cloud Infrastructure and Big Data leader whose work at Cisco, Seagate, and Salesforce has influenced how some of the world’s largest enterprises scale, secure, and innovate in the cloud.
Engineering at Global Scale
Surya’s professional journey began in Hyderabad, India, and has taken him to the heart of Silicon Valley’s enterprise technology scene. Over the last 8 years, he has worked across AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP), delivering mission-critical infrastructure for Fortune 500 companies.
At Cisco Systems, where he served as Senior Big Data Infrastructure Engineer from 2018 to 2021, Surya managed AWS environments supporting more than 2,000 enterprise customers. His cost-optimization initiatives, including a redesigned vAnalytics infrastructure, saved the company more than $3 million annually. Colleagues credit him with implementing “one of the most robust compliance frameworks Cisco has seen in its cloud environments,” centralizing governance across 50+ AWS accounts.
Industry Recognition and Results
His impact has not gone unnoticed. Over his Cisco tenure, Surya received 28 Connected Recognition awards, an internal accolade for excellence in infrastructure stability, automation, and cost efficiency.
Before that, at Seagate Technology, Surya played a key role in maintaining a 160-node production Hadoop cluster and led the migration of petabytes of production data to AWS - a pivotal step in Seagate’s cloud transformation strategy.
Pushing Boundaries at Salesforce
Since 2021, Surya has been part of Salesforce’s global infrastructure engineering team, contributing to projects that support AI-driven analytics and the company’s expanding CRM footprint. While many details remain under wraps due to confidentiality, his work includes cloud architectures supporting core CRM platform expansion to 12+ AWS regions and leadership of an 18-member engineering team with over 90% sprint forecast accuracy.
A Salesforce engineering director, speaking on condition of anonymity, described Surya as “one of those rare engineers who combines deep technical expertise with a business-first mindset. His solutions aren’t just technically sound - they move the needle for the company.”
An Automation-First Philosophy
Surya attributes his success to what he calls an “automation-first mindset”: designing systems to be scalable, resilient, and cost-efficient from the ground up. “The pace of change in cloud technology is relentless,” he says. “The only way to keep up is to make automation your foundation.”
Advice for the Next Generation
Asked what advice he would give to early-career engineers, Surya says: “Master the fundamentals - whether it’s cloud architecture or infrastructure as code. Stay curious, experiment, and don’t shy away from complex problems. That’s where the real learning happens.”
Looking Ahead
As enterprises worldwide continue to rely on cloud infrastructure to power AI, analytics, and global applications, leaders like Naga Surya Teja Thallam will be central to shaping what comes next. His career trajectory reflects both the depth of India’s engineering talent and the critical role of infrastructure innovators in the global tech ecosystem.
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