The People Behind the Technology
Before a Dejavoo solution reaches a partner or merchant, teams work together to define requirements, develop and test features, prepare infrastructure, and support the technology once it goes live.
Our Chennai team plays an important role throughout that process. In this edition of Meet the Team, we introduce two leaders helping connect product delivery, quality, security, and global technology operations: Samrutha Gopal, Project Manager and QA Lead, and Kathirvelan Balu, Vice President of Information Technology.
Their responsibilities span different areas, but they share a commitment to delivering technology our partners and merchants can depend on. Here’s a closer look at their work-and the people behind it.
Meet Samrutha Gopal
Project Manager and QA Lead
Meet Samrutha Gopal
Project Manager and QA Lead
Samrutha, what is your role at Dejavoo?
I’m a Project Manager and QA Lead, and my role spans Project Management, Product, Support, and QA.
I work closely with different teams to take projects from planning through delivery, coordinate product requirements and priorities, support production issues and escalations, and ensure the quality and stability of our releases.
Because my role covers different areas, I get to work across the complete product lifecycle-from understanding a requirement and validating the solution to supporting production and bringing feedback back into the product.
What happens behind the scenes before a solution reaches our partners and merchants?
It starts with understanding the business requirement and making sure the scope is clear. From there, we work with the product and development teams on implementation, followed by unit testing, QA, integration testing, and release validation.
In payments, we also need to consider different processors, transaction types, integrations, security, performance, and real-world failure scenarios.
My responsibility is to make sure these pieces come together properly. We want to deliver something that is stable, scalable, and ready for real-world use.
What does successful collaboration Between Chennai and the rest of Dejavoo look like to you?
For me, successful collaboration is about clear communication, ownership, and trust.
Working across locations requires clear requirements, clear ownership, regular communication, and quick escalation when there are dependencies or blockers.
I also believe collaboration means taking ownership beyond your individual responsibility, If there is a problem, we shouldn’t think, “This belongs to another team.” We should work together to understand the issue and find the right solution.
How do you balance moving quickly with making sure the technology is reliable?
We want to respond quickly to customer and market needs, but even a small issue can directly affect a merchant’s ability to process payments.
Quality needs to be part of the entire development process. We consider testing, security, scalability, and real-world failure scenarios throughout delivery.
We also learn from production issues. When something happens, we want to understand the root cause and make sure that scenario is covered in our processes or test cases going forward.
What makes you particularly proud of the Chennai team?
I’m proud of how the team has grown in ownership and the breadth of work we handle.
Our work extends beyond traditional QA into payment integrations, POS, APIS, portals, automation, production support, scalability, security, and new product initiatives.
What makes me most proud is seeing people take ownership of problems and work across teams to resolve them. The team continues to become technically stronger, more independent, and more accountable for the overall product.
Outside of work, what might your colleagues be surprised to learn about you?
I really enjoy spending time with my family and children. My work can be fast-paced, so I value time to disconnect, enjoy family life, walk, and stay active.
Despite spending so much of my working life dealing with technology, payments, and production issues, outside work I appreciate simple family time and keeping things relaxed.
Contact Samrutha at
Meet Kathirvelan Balu
VP of Information Technology
Meet Kathirvelan Balu
VP of Information Technology
Kathir, what is your role at Dejavoo?
I lead our global DevOps and IT operations, managing infrastructure, cloud services, platform reliability, cybersecurity, and regulatory compliance.
My focus is ensuring that the technology supporting our products and global operations remains secure, scalable, resilient, and available around the clock.
I also oversee our 24/7 Monitoring and Security Operations Center, or SOC, which continuously monitors our systems and security events.
What does the process look like from your side before a solution launches?
Our involvement starts long before launch. We work closely with Product, Engineering, QA, Security, Project Management, and Support to prepare secure, reliable environments for development, testing, and production.
Behind every release, we manage infrastructure, deployment pipelines, access controls, security safeguards, monitoring, backups, and disaster-recovery processes. We also ensure PCI DSS and other regulatory requirements are embedded throughout the lifecycle.
After launch, our SOC and monitoring teams track system health, availability, performance, and security events. This helps us identify potential risks early and respond quickly to incidents.
How do you balance innovation with security and reliability?
In payments, speed is essential, but security and reliability are paramount.
We balance these priorities through automation, standardized infrastructure, secure deployment pipelines, continuous monitoring and clear validation checkpoints.
We integrate security and PCI DSS compliance from the start. That allows us to deliver efficiently while maintaining high standards for quality and reliability.
What are you particularly proud of about the Chennai team?
I’m especially proud that our team built a secure, scalable, PCI DSS-compliant infrastructure from the ground up and successfully achieved PCI DSS certification. That milestone required deep technical expertise and close collaboration across teams.
I’m also proud of our 24/7 SOC capability, which works around the clock to maintain the availability and security of Dejavoo’s global platform.
Above all, I admire the Chennai team’s ownership, adaptability, and dedication. They consistently tackle complex challenges and play a critical role in keeping our global technology operations secure and dependable.
Contact Kathirvelan at
A Shared Commitment to Our Partners
Samrutha and Kathir’s perspectives show how much teamwork goes into the technology our partners and merchants use every day. From testing how a feature performs to monitoring the infrastructure supporting it, their teams bring care, expertise, and ownership to each stage.
Thank you to Samrutha, Kathir, and the Chennai team for the work you do behind the scenes and the difference it makes across Dejavoo.
Stay tuned as our Meet the Team series continues with more of the people helping our partners succeed.
