Rohit Athavale

[email protected] • (310) 654-1834 • Claremont, CA, Los Angeles County
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rohit-athavale/ • GitHub: https://github.com/Rohit-Athavale/

PROFESSIONAL SUMMARY

Cross platform software engineer with 10+ years of experience across FreeBSD (NetApp), Linux (Xilinx/AMD), and Windows (Microsoft), delivering high-performance, low-latency media and streaming systems. Deep C/C++ expertise a proven record of architecting and optimizing video codec pipelines for real-time, cross-platform applications from design to deployment. Authorized to work in the US (green card).

WORK EXPERIENCE

Senior Software Engineer – Video Codecs
08/2022 - Present
Microsoft , Remote
• Led the development and optimization of HEVC decode/encode libraries for major Microsoft applications (PowerPoint, MS Teams, Photos, Remote Desktop) across PC, Xbox, and Surface, resulting in a 50-60% reduction in bug and Watson hit rates among over 100 million monthly active users
• Designed and implemented API architecture enhancements to integrate Delta QP for AVC/HEVC support in DX12 Encode, improving video quality and encoding efficiency by 15%
• Added gain map and HEVC 4:4:4 support to HEVC decode, enabling seamless HEIC rendering and enhancing screen sharing scenarios, which increased user satisfaction scores by 10%
• Diagnosed and resolved complex HWDRM issues affecting protected content playback in Chrome, Netflix, and other apps, reducing playback failures by 30% and improving DRM reliability
Staff/Lead Software Engineer – Video
05/2018 - 08/2022
AMD (Xilinx acquired by AMD) , San Jose
• Led a team of 6 developers as the release, packaging, and build lead for the U30, a low-cost, high-density cloud video transcoding accelerator, achieving a 30% reduction in build times and accelerating time-to-market
• Developed and deployed production-ready Docker images with pre-installed Xilinx packages, dependencies, and runtime drivers, streamlining development and deployment workflows for streaming and cloud gaming platforms, resulting in a 25% increase in developer efficiency
• Engineered HDR10/HDR10+ metadata extraction and reinsertion for H.264/HEVC bitstreams, enhancing video quality compliance and improving end-user visual experience by 15%
• Authored advanced encoder firmware for H.264/HEVC with custom rate control and frame-level QP tuning, boosting video quality metrics by 20% while maintaining optimal bitrate
• Spearheaded prototyping of hierarchical motion estimation on a VLIW SIMD vector processor, validating architectural feasibility and informing future hardware design improvements
• Mentored junior engineers on GStreamer and FFmpeg plugin architectures, fostering team skill development and improving plugin integration efficiency by 18%
Software Engineer – Camera & ISP Linux Drivers
05/2016 - 05/2018
AMD (Xilinx acquired by AMD) , San Jose
• 5G enablement: Authored a Linux platform device driver for SDFEC used in 5G networks
• ISP pipeline: Original author of multiple ISP V4L2 drivers across the Xilinx video stack. Blocks: Color space conversion, video scaling, demosaic (de‑Bayer), and gamma correction
• M2M V4L2: Contributed an Memory to Memory video scaler implementation
• Primary author of now up streamed Linux platform device driver for SDFEC block used in 5G networks
Software Engineer – Platform Software
04/2013 - 05/2016
NetApp , Sunnyvale
• Platform PCIe subsystem, Intel x64 architecture, device drivers for PCIe based devices in BSD/FreeBSD operating system
• Added kernel support for Turbo Boost technology. Improved overall OS performance by 4-6%
• Migrated NetApp’s OS from legacy MP tables to ACPI
• Implemented system software and device drivers to inject memory errors for DDR4 and access SPD (EEPROM) for DDR4 memory
• Kernel Error Handling for Uncorrectable PCIe Errors, Machine Check Exceptions and NMI handlers

EDUCATION

Master of Science (Computer Engineering)
03/2013
University of California - Irvine , CA, USA GPA: 3.827 /4.0
Bachelor of Engineering (Electrical Engineering)
06/2011
Visvesvaraya Technological University , Bangalore, India GPA: 8.23/10.0

SKILLS