Avinash Ratnavel (MCompSci'18)
2024 Alumni Engagement Medal Award recipient
Current job and employer: Software Engineer at Arista Networks
Current city: San Jose, CA
Professional background
Avinash Ratnavel graduated with an MS in computer science in 2018. During his time at CU, he maintained an excellent GPA and excelled as a teaching assistant for data structures and computer systems, eventually winning the department’s coveted Best Teaching Assistant Award. Ratnavel now works as a software engineer at Arista Networks. He is passionate about giving back to the department, making a point to promote the program and the great work happening in the Department of Computer Science department.
Contributions to the Computer Science department over the past year
Since starting his position at Arista, Ratnavel has brought an Arista team to Boulder every fall. The company presents a talk on internship/job search techniques and then holds interviews for both computer science/software jobs and network engineering jobs. Ratnavel ensures this event happens every fall. Anytime he travels to Boulder with any other job-related commitments, he always brings some engagement from Arista for an additional touchpoint. He has supported networking events, mock interviews, events for career exploration and on-campus job interviews, and is always encouraging students to learn more about future opportunities in the tech industry. This past summer, he visited the Computer Science Graduate Professional Development Club and spearheaded a series that brings industry speakers to students. Once the speaker series was launched, alumni and industry partners immediately signed up to present every Friday throughout fall, and computer science students remain enthusiastic about these opportunities to engage with a variety of tech career contacts.