In an era where financial systems depend on realtime intelligence, near-zero operational risk, and uncompromising data security, the role of data engineering leaders has never been more critical. Among the innovators shaping this next generation of intelligent financial infrastructure is Surya Sunnam, a Vice President and senior Data Engineering leader known for designing AI-ready, highly resilient, and mission-critical data platforms at global scale.
With a career built at the intersection of distributed systems, enterprise data reliability, and intelligent automation, Surya has established himself as a transformative technologist whose work powers core banking operations for millions of customers worldwide. Today, he leads large-scale data and platform modernization initiatives at Bank of America, one of the world’s most data-intensive and tightly regulated financial institutions.
Architecting the Future of Intelligent Financial Infrastructure
Surya specializes in building secure, highly reliable, and massively scalable enterprise data ecosystems designed for realtime analytics, predictive decisioning, and automated risk management. His expertise includes:
At Bank of America, Surya’s work enables the seamless functioning of mission-critical financial infrastructure, from fraud detection and regulatory reporting to realtime risk analytics and global transaction systems.
Transforming Legacy Data Systems into AI-Ready Platforms
One of Surya’s most impactful accomplishments is the enterprise-wide migration from MySQL to PostgreSQL, spanning 24 production clusters and dozens of business-critical applications. This modernization initiative not only removed legacy bottlenecks but delivered over one million dollars in annual licensing savings while significantly reducing systemic risk.
He also engineered an Ozone-based intelligent backup and recovery framework equipped with continuous WAL archiving, cross-region replication, predictive failure modeling, and point-in-time recovery. This architecture delivers zero-data-loss guarantees — a benchmark standard in financial resiliency — and now serves as a foundational enterprise capability for secure, recoverable, and compliant data management.
Pioneering Secure, AI-Safe Compute Architectures
Surya is widely recognized for conceptualizing and building the Ghost Edge Node model, an innovative and secure compute onboarding architecture that resolves long-standing multi-tenant analytics conflicts. This model allows distributed application teams to execute their own compute workloads while securely connecting to centralized enterprise data platforms.
Key advantages of this architecture include:
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Simplified onboarding for analytics modernization
The Ghost Edge Node framework earned a prestigious Gold Award for innovation and transformational impact and has become an influential pattern for enterprise data platform modernization.
Strengthening Enterprise Security for the AI Era
Surya has also played a critical role in advancing Bank of America’s cryptographic and access control posture. His leadership in Cloudera CDH-to-CDP modernization and migration from older encryption methods to Ranger KMS significantly elevated the organization’s security, auditability, and governance capabilities — essential foundations for AI-compatible enterprise environments.
His work enables:
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Automated access intelligence
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Fine-grained cryptographic controls
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AI-driven governance insights
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Continuous compliance enforcement
These initiatives reinforce operational resilience while preparing financial systems for scalable, secure AI adoption.
Leadership Rooted in Engineering Excellence and Award-Winning Innovation
Surya’s leadership has been recognized across the enterprise through multiple accolades, including two Gold Awards and six Silver Awards for technical excellence, platform transformation, and enterprise innovation.
In his current role as Vice President, he partners with cloud engineers, cybersecurity teams, infrastructure groups, and application leaders to drive:
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Predictive capacity modeling
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AI-assisted architecture strategy
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Secure access and governance design
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Next-generation platform modernization
His influence extends across platforms supporting millions of users, making his work instrumental to the stability and intelligence of global banking operations.
Building a Foundation of Distributed Systems Expertise
Before joining Bank of America, Surya built and supported large-scale analytics and distributed systems platforms at Walt Disney. This experience laid the technical groundwork for his success in financial infrastructure engineering, giving him a deep understanding of high-volume data ecosystems that operate on stringent performance, reliability, and security expectations.
Advancing the Future of AI-Driven Reliability and Financial Platform Modernization
Surya remains at the forefront of redefining enterprise data engineering for an AI-native future. His architecture patterns are shaping intelligent automation, anomaly-aware operations, self-healing data systems, and predictive governance models that enhance the resilience of critical financial infrastructure.
His contributions continue to strengthen one of the most essential pillars of the US economy, ensuring that data-intensive financial platforms remain secure, compliant, intelligent, and future-ready.