Akshit Soneji's Resume on the Web

I keep networks honest for a living. On weekends I'm usually just chasing good light.

Hey, I'm Akshit Soneji. I'm a Senior Staff Engineer working on Security & Networking Systems at Palo Alto Networks, and before that I was at NonceBlox.

I own PAN-OS development for cellular firewalls, FIPS-certified cryptographic modules, and OpenSSL / TLS / X.509 PKI architecture, and I've filed a patent for an AI framework that detects post-quantum "harvest now, decrypt later" attacks, and built a working version of it called Heimdall that won a hackathon. I started out as a frontend developer at Ionio LLC, then moved into full-stack blockchain engineering at NonceBlox before landing in security and networking.

TL:DR - I can work across security, networking, cryptography, blockchain and full-stack. And yeah, I'm folding AI into most of it these days too.

Outside of work I play badminton (state-level, a while back now), spend too much time on chess, and I've been getting into photography lately - a few shots are further down this page.

SecurityNetworkingCryptographyPhotography

Years of experience

GPA out of 10

Photos clicked

Where I've built.

Dec 2022 - Present Bengaluru, India

Palo Alto Networks

Senior Staff Engineer · SDE-3 equivalent

Promoted from Staff Engineer to Senior Staff Engineer.
Filed a patent for an AI framework that detects post-quantum "Harvest Now, Decrypt Later" attacks, then built it into Heimdall, a live HNDL-defense demo that won the PANW NetSec Hackathon.
Owned PAN-OS development for PA-52R-5G - PANW's first Cellular Firewall with VIMS support - and hold a company-wide record for remote bring-up in a single day.
Key contributor to IPv6 on cellular interface, Multiple APN and DNN support for 5G-integrated firewalls.
Built and shipped an AI ticket-triage pipeline (LLM + MCP) that parses logs and stack traces automatically, cutting engineering resolution time by 30%.
Primary technical contact for a FIPS 140-2/3 certification, covering cryptographic algorithm self-tests, entropy seeding and CC Testing.
Worked on NPIs and cellular features for the NGFW Platform team, OpenSSL (TLS 1.2/1.3, X.509 PKI), and FIPS-validated crypto policy enforcement.
Co-lead, Early in Career India Chapter.

Sep 2021 - Nov 2022 New Delhi, India (Remote)

NonceBlox Pvt. Ltd.

Full Stack Web3 Developer

Built scalable blockchain products, including a metaverse platform, an NFT marketplace, and betting apps.
Shipped 30+ solutions/dApps across Polygon, BSC, and Ethereum.
Built a whitelabel minting engine handling 1,000+ NFTs per batch at under 1% error rate.
Built a whitelabel metaverse renderer handling 100k+ elements in under 2 seconds.
Named Star Performer of the Month within six months of joining.

Apr 2021 - Sep 2021 Mumbai, India (Remote)

Ionio LLC

Frontend Developer & Hiring

Built a SaaS platform for automated, highly customizable cold outreach.
Scaled the platform to send 1,800+ emails a day per user.
Worked primarily in React, Redux, PostgreSQL, and Docker.

Tools of the trade.

Security & Crypto

FIPS 140-2/3 · OpenSSL · TLS 1.2/1.3 · X.509 PKI · AES / RSA / ECC · Post-Quantum Crypto

Programming

C++ · Python · TypeScript · JavaScript

Tools & Platforms

Wireshark · GDB · AWS · GCP · Docker · Redis · Git

Web Frameworks

React · Redux · Next.js · Node.js · GraphQL · NestJS · MongoDB · Postgres · MySQL

Selected work.

Hackathon Winner · Patent Filed · Security

Heimdall

The demoable version of my patent-filed idea for stopping Harvest-Now-Decrypt-Later attacks. Heimdall watches the cloud control plane, scores every CloudTrail event through four detection pillars and four ML models, and boils it down to one security posture score. When a bulk copy looks like a harvest, an agent investigates and plans a containment that, after human approval, actually executes on AWS. Demoed live on a real account, not a simulation.

LangGraph AWS CloudTrail Gradient-Boosted ML LLM Agents HNDL Detection

Hackathon Winner · AI · Security

PQC Compass

An AI-based post-quantum readiness platform that helps enterprises meet CNSA 2.0 mandates and catch Harvest-Now-Decrypt-Later attacks early. Runs multi-dimensional audits across cloud infrastructure, live network protocols (handshake and cipher-suite negotiation), and code binaries using taint analysis - using reinforcement learning to help generate CBOMs with AI-based confidence checks.

Flask Python AWS SDK (boto3) GPT-4 Checkov Semgrep

A visual journal.

Nothing sticks around - not light, not people, not moments. Photography is just my way of holding onto a few of them anyway, small proof in an indifferent universe that I was here for some of it.