For Sudeshna Guha, difficult decisions have served as catalysts for success — and helped guide her to NVIDIA, where she’s now doing her life’s work as a principal systems software engineer.
Growing up in a middle-class family in Kolkata, Guha, from a young age, felt a strong responsibility to become financially independent and support her family. Despite struggling to achieve a high rank in her engineering entrance exams, Guha worked hard to earn a bachelor’s in electrical engineering from the National Institute of Technology, Kurukshetra. Upon graduation, she had a job offer but faced the tough decision of whether to jump into the workforce or stay in school to further study semiconductors.
After much contemplation, she chose the latter and secured admission to IIT Delhi’s master’s program in integrated electronics and circuits.
This would prove critical — ultimately leading to a campus placement in the ASIC verification team at NVIDIA.
Guha’s taken on multiple roles over her nearly two-decade career at NVIDIA. She spent her first six years in hardware, starting as a verification engineer before transitioning to design. She later moved to architecture, serving as a senior architect for NVIDIA Tegra system architecture.
Guha and her then-manager discovered the need to formalize the functional architecture specifications for Tegra. While execution moved at high speed and intensity, the absence of structured processes led to bugs that ultimately impacted the quality of the work.
With the support of her team and leaders, Guha helped address the challenge through power sequencing, power states and boot processes. She played a key role in developing architectural specifications, establishing ownership domains and enhancing Tegra’s chip design process.
After 12 years in hardware, Guha pivoted to software, where she became the technical lead for the CUDA driver on the Confidential Computing project.
“Now, my focus is on accelerated computing, a significant shift from my previous work,” said Guha. “I’m excited about working in this space because it is about furthering NVIDIA’s excellence in computing.”
Guha strives to contribute to the broader ecosystem and champion NVIDIA technology. She’s most passionate about empowering others to pursue their life’s work through mentorship and support — whether personal or technical.
“NVIDIA enabled me to do my life’s work by breaking down barriers,” she said. “When I wanted to challenge myself and explore software architecture, I had the opportunity to do so. I believe in supporting people, just as I’ve been supported.”
When she’s not working, Guha enjoys spending time with her son, who she says she’s constantly learning from.
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