About Me

I am Rohan R. Arora, a Senior Software Engineer at IBM Research. I joined IBM Research in 2016 after graduating from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a Master's Degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering. In my early career at IBM, I co-led the effort on developing augmented and virtual reality-based solutions for the enterprise. Since 2021, I have been working at the intersection of machine learning (ML) and IT operations, particularly in the areas of incident management and resource optimization.

Professional Experience

IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, New York, USA

Senior Software Engineer Nov. 2021–Present

  • Enabling a team of 5 researchers to develop an approach to optimize GPU usage for large language model (LLM) inferencing tasks.
  • Co-led a team of 5 researchers to develop an explainable unsupervised machine learning (ML) method to help site reliability engineers (SREs) identify idle workloads in their IT environments. This has resulted in reduction of IT resources by 25% in a few large IT environments, and the rollout has just begun.

Advisory Software Engineer Sept. 2018–Nov. 2021

  • Co-designed and developed a methodology to filter noisy irrelevant anomalies. This addressed the issue of false alarms that result in SRE alert fatigue.
  • Built sandbox environments to seamlessly deploy and evaluate existing AIOps product assets. This has reduced (and continues to reduce) the time for integration of new research capabilities into the products.

Staff Software Engineer June 2015–Aug. 2018

  • Co-led the effort to define, design, and develop a cloud-native remote assistance solution based on augmented reality (AR) for IBM’s Technology Lifecycle Services (TLS) division. The effort led to the transformation of IBM's TLS division and won 2 accomplishment awards at IBM.
  • Interacted with end-users, defined the product roadmap, and facilitated sprint planning meetings.
  • Contributions as a developer were to code a Django REST Framework-based backend, an Angular-based frontend, and a minimalistic Android application.

Coordinated Science Laboratory, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, USA

Graduate Research Assistant: Human Activity Recognition May 2014–May 2016

  • Reduced the dimensionality of the feature set from 21 to 12 through detailed statistical analysis of the motion sensor (accelerometer and gyroscope) data.
  • Spearheaded the formulation of data scrubbers to tackle inconsistencies in the raw dataset automatically.
  • Constructed Naive Bayes, Support Vector Machine-based, K-Nearest Neighbors classifiers and evaluated classification performance for each of the classifiers on publicly available activity recognition datasets.
Coordinated Science Laboratory, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, USA

Research Programmer (Full-Time) Oct. 2012–Apr. 2014

Summer Intern May 2012–Aug. 2012

  • Designed and developed a Python-based non-linear filtering (estimation) research tool.
  • Facilitated the performance evaluation and comparison of estimation algorithms such as the Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) and Feedback Particle Filter (FPF) for target tracking applications.
Synqua Games Private Limited, Mumbai, India

Trainee Programmer July 2011–Dec. 2011

Summer Intern May 2011–June 2011

  • Developed an Android application for a web-service that provided personalized mobile application recommendations.
  • Contributed to the game Cricket with Friends, the winner of Blackberry Partners Fund Developer Challenge 2011–Asia Pacific.

Awards

  • 2023 Outstanding Technical Achievement Award (OTAA) for contributions to IBM's AIOps platform and IT operations management solution
  • 2022 Culture Catalyst Award
  • 2021 Outstanding Technical Achievement Award (OTAA) for contributions leading to the transformation of Technology Lifecycle Services (formerly known as Technology Support Services [TSS])
  • 2020 Technical Achievement Award for contributions for developing Augmented Reality-based solutions for Technology Lifecycle Services (formerly known as Technology Support Services [TSS])
  • 2017 Manager's Choice Award

Skills

  • Programming Languages: Python | Intermediate proficiency in Java | Intermediate proficiency in SQL
  • Frameworks: LangChain, Django (primarily Django REST Framework), Angular (Typescript)
  • Cloud Platforms: IBM Cloud (Bluemix), Amazon Web Services (AWS)
  • Tools and Technologies: Docker, Podman, Kubernetes, OpenShift, Git, Vim, LaTeX

Publications

  1. Optimizing IT FinOps and Sustainability through Unsupervised Workload Characterization
    Venue: 2024 Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 38(21), 22990-22996; Section: IAAI Technical Track on Emerging Applications of AI
    Authors: Xi Yang, Rohan R. Arora, Saurabh Jha, Chandra Narayanaswami, Cheuk Lam, Jerrold Leichter, Yu Deng, Daby M. Sow
  2. Dynamic Alert Suppression Policy for Noise Reduction in AIOps
    Venue: ICSE-SEIP '24: Proceedings of the 46th International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering in Practice
    Authors: Karan Bhukar, Harshit Kumar, Ruchi Mahindru, Rohan R. Arora, Seema Nagar, Pooja Aggarwal, Amit Paradkar
  3. Dynamic-X-Y: A Tool for Learning Dynamic Alert Suppression Policies in AIOps
    Venue: 2024 16th International Conference on COMmunication Systems & NETworkS (COMSNETS)
    Authors: Karan Bhukar, Harshit Kumar, Seema Nagar, Pooja Aggarwal, Ian Manning, Rohan Arora, Ruchi Mahindru, Amit Paradkar, Matthew Thornhill, Stephen Cook, Jack Buggins
  4. Towards Carbon Footprint Management in Hybrid Multicloud
    Venue: HotCarbon '23: Proceedings of the 2nd Workshop on Sustainable Computer Systems
    Authors: Rohan R. Arora, Umamaheswari Devi, Tamar Eilam, Aanchal Goyal, Chandra Narayanaswami, Pritish Parida
  5. Utilizing Persistence for Post Facto Suppression of Invalid Anomalies using System Logs
    Venue: ICSE-NIER '22: Proceedings of the ACM/IEEE 44th International Conference on Software Engineering: New Ideas and Emerging Results
    Authors: Dipanwita Guhathakurta, Pooja Aggarwal, Seema Nagar, Rohan R. Arora, Bing Zhou
  6. Dynamic Content Generation for Augmented Technical Support
    Venue: 2021 IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality Adjunct (ISMAR-Adjunct)
    Authors: Sinem Güven Kaya; Bing Zhou; Rohan R. Arora; Noah Zheutlin; Gerard Vanloo; Elif K. Eyigoz

Patents

  1. Generating incident explanations using spatio-temporal log clustering
    Inventors: Seema Nagar, Mudhakar Srivatsa, Pooja Aggarwal, Joshua M Rosenkranz, Dipanwita Guhathakurta, Amitkumar Manoharrao Paradkar, Rohan R. Arora
  2. Dynamic window-size selection for anomaly detection
    Inventors: Seema Nagar, Pooja Aggarwal, Rohan R Arora, Amitkumar Manoharrao Paradkar
  3. Dynamic gratuity recommendation
    Inventors: Noah Zheutlin, Rohan R. Arora, Gerard Randolph Vanloo
  4. Failure prediction using informational logs and golden signals
    Inventors: Seema Nagar, Rohan Arora, Bing Zhou, Noah Zheutlin, Pooja Aggarwal, Amitkumar Manoharrao Paradkar, Larisa Shwartz
  5. Identifying persistent anomalies for failure prediction
    Inventors: Seema Nagar, Pooja Aggarwal, Dipanwita Guhathakurta, Rohan Arora, Amitkumar Paradkar, Larisa Shwartz, Bing Zhou, Noah Zheutlin
  6. Optimization framework for real-time rendering of media using machine learning techniques
    Inventors: Sinem Güven Kaya, Noah Zheutlin, Rohan R. Arora, Gerard Randolph Vanloo
  7. Leveraging a regulated network to enable device connectivity in a restricted zone
    Inventors: Rohan R. Arora, Christian Eggenberger, Sinem Güven Kaya, Jens Rathgeber
  8. Dynamic content generation for augmented reality assisted technology support
    Inventors: Sinem Güven Kaya, John A. Bivens, Rohan R. Arora

Philanthropic Activities

Volunteer, Catchafire Jan. 2021–Sept. 2023

  • Helped 5 nonprofit organizations transition to Google Workspaces, enhancing online collaboration and productivity.

Project Steward, Asha for Education–UIUC Chapter Oct. 2013–Dec. 2015

  • Conducted an issue-based and need-based analysis for judicious allocation of funds to underprivileged and hearing-impaired children in India.

Content Developer, Creative, Serious and Playful Science of Android Apps Aug. 2013–Feb. 2014

  • Developed lecture content, quizzes, and assignments for the Coursera course with over 140,000 enrollments.

Chairperson, Computer Society of India–NMIMS Chapter Aug. 2009–May 2011

  • Organized computing workshops and competitions for the student community.

Education

University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, USA
Master of Science in Electrical and Computer Engineering May 2016

Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies (NMIMS), Mumbai, India
Bachelor of Technology in Information Technology Aug. 2012