Member of Technical Staff
Jan 2025 – PresentWorking across Kubernetes features, releases, and QA to make sure customers get a stable, production-ready platform.
Hi, I'm
Sandipan Panda
Building Kubernetes & AI Infrastructure
Member of Technical Staff @ DevZero · Kubernetes Member · CNCF Ambassador
About
“Most developers use Kubernetes. I enjoy helping build it.”
I'm a Member of Technical Staff at DevZero, where I work on Kubernetes and platform engineering. Outside of work, I contribute to Kubernetes, Kubeflow, and other CNCF projects because I enjoy understanding how production infrastructure evolves — and making it a little better each time.
Open source has shaped how I think about engineering. It taught me that good software isn't just clean code — it's reliable releases, secure supply chains, thoughtful documentation, and reducing friction for the next contributor.
I've contributed to Kubernetes, Kubeflow, Cilium, and minikube, spoken at KubeCon, written for the Kubernetes and CNCF blogs, and organized CNCF community events in Kolkata.
Experience
CNCF Ambassador
May 2024 – PresentCloud Native Computing Foundation
Credible advocate for the cloud native ecosystem — driving adoption of CNCF technologies, organizing community events, and furthering the open source mission.
Member
Nov 2021 – PresentContinuously active contributor — security and release engineering work on minikube (SBOM automation, OpenSSF security documentation, CLOMonitor tracking) plus ongoing SIG and community participation.
Community Manager
Sep 2021 – PresentKubernetes — SIG Contributor Experience
Automating and maintaining tools and processes that reduce friction for Kubernetes contributors.
Google Summer of Code 2024 Contributor
May 2024 – Sep 2024Designed and implemented JAX integration into the Kubeflow Training Operator, enabling distributed training and fine-tuning jobs on Kubernetes with JAX. Mentored by Andrey Velichkevich, Yuki Iwai, Johnu George, and Yuan Tang.
Member (Open Source Contributor)
Oct 2024 – PresentMentee, LFX Mentorship Program
Sep 2022 – Nov 2022Increased the security of Cilium and Tetragon's release process: implemented cosign-based image signing and SBOM generation, and helped bring Cilium's CLOMonitor score to 100.
Open Source
minikube
mergedkubernetes/minikube · 2023 – Present
Automated Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) generation on every minikube release via GitHub Actions using SIG Release's `bom` tool, added an OpenSSF security documentation spec, and set up CLOMonitor project-health tracking.
Cilium & Tetragon
mergedcilium/cilium, cilium/tetragon · 2022 – 2024
Implemented cosign-based container image signing and SBOM generation for Cilium and Tetragon release artifacts during the CNCF LFX'22 mentorship, helping bring Cilium's CLOMonitor score to 100. Returned in 2024 to migrate Cilium from SBOM attachments to SBOM attestations as the ecosystem standard evolved.
kubeflow/trainer · May – Sep 2024 (Google Summer of Code)
Designed and implemented JAX support in the Kubeflow Training Operator for distributed training and fine-tuning on Kubernetes.
CLOMonitor
mergedcncf/clomonitor · 2022, 2024
Added and fixed project-health checks spanning multiple CNCF subprojects, including Kubeflow and Cilium.
Karpenter
mergedaws/karpenter-provider-aws · 2026
Fixed an invalid `eksctl` flag in the Zonal Shift onboarding documentation.
CNCF Glossary
mergedcncf/glossary · Jul – Oct 2021
Early contributions defining cloud native terms — his first month as an open source contributor.
Talks & Writing
- Empowering ML Workloads With Kubeflow: JAX Distributed Training and LLM Hyperparameter Optimization with Hezhi Xie
- Newbie No More: Lessons from My First KubeCon + CloudNativeCon as a Speaker
- Spotlight on SIG Apps
- Spotlight on SIG Testing A Q&A with SIG Testing's chair and tech lead
- Inside KubeCon EU 2025: Highlights and Key Trends
Community
- CNCF Ambassador · Cloud Native Computing Foundation · May 2024 – Present
- Cloud Native Community Group Organizer — Kolkata · CNCF · Mar 2024 – Present · Learn more
- Participant, Security Slam 2023 — Kubernetes Lightning Round · CNCF / Sonatype / Google Open Source Security Team · Dec 2023 · Learn more
Skills & Interests
Kubernetes InternalsPlatform EngineeringAI InfrastructureDistributed Systems
Certifications & Badges
- Kubeflow Summit EU 2025 Speaker Badge · The Linux Foundation
- CNCF Ambassador – H1 2024 · Cloud Native Computing Foundation
Education
RCC Institute of Information Technology
Affiliated to Maulana Abul Kalam Azad University of Technology, West Bengal
B.Tech, Information Technology · 2019 – 2023
CGPA 9.08