Santosh Hegde is a seasoned technology leader with a passion for driving innovation in the realm of database systems and distributed computing. Currently serving as the Senior Director of Engineering at Couchbase India, he leads the Core R&D Team focusing on the development of transactional and analytical NoSQL Database Systems. Prior to his role at Couchbase, he held the position of Director of Engineering at Visa, where he contributed significantly to the advancement of cutting-edge SQL technologies. Before that, Santosh made impactful strides in his career at the IBM Software Lab, where he played a pivotal role in various database projects. Santosh is recognized for his innovative contributions and holds multiple patents in distributed systems and database internals.