Biography
Bala Arjunan Muthiah is Director of Engineering at Lyft, where he leads technical teams building scalable mobility infrastructure, combining deep engineering expertise with people-first leadership. A thoughtful leader dedicated to nurturing individual growth, Bala spent eight years (2011–2019) at SAP SuccessFactors in engineering management, architecting HR technology solutions and scaling global teams. His career began as Senior Software Engineer at Photon (2006–2011), building enterprise software systems. Bala holds two patents: Intelligent Recruiting Tool for Capturing and Storing Candidate Data (2013) and Automated Sourcing and Screening of Candidate Profiles (2013), reflecting his early work in AI-powered talent acquisition. Beyond his corporate role, Bala is a serial advisor and mentor: he co-founded disrpt.io (2019–2021), served on the Board of Advisors for Defy Ventures (2023–2024)—a nonprofit supporting formerly incarcerated entrepreneurs—and mentored startups at SAP.iO (2018–2019) and GrowthMentor. He completed Stanford Continuing Studies' Leadership for Collaborative Success program (2019) and holds certifications in Human-Computer Interaction (Coursera) and Scrum Master (Scrum Alliance). Educated at Anna University (Bachelor of Engineering, Electronics & Communication), Bala's philosophy centers on empowering teams to reach their full potential through trust, mentorship, and adaptive leadership. He speaks internationally on engineering culture, people development, and building high-performing teams in fast-paced tech environments.