Prachi Jain and Sandhya Narayan, Netflix
Deployment freezes are a common safety lever during high-risk periods, but they often slow teams down and create bottlenecks. In this talk, Prachi Jain and Sandhya Narayan share how Netflix is replacing blanket freezes with data-driven, service-specific risk management that enables safe, continuous delivery even during critical events. Attendees will learn how to classify services by risk, integrate this into CI/CD, and empower teams to ship quickly without sacrificing reliability.
Prachi Jain is an experienced SRE with expertise in building and managing scalable, reliable services in Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), cryptography, secrets management, and security. Currently an SRE at Netflix, she previously held key roles at Fastly and Cisco, where she addressed complex, large-scale reliability challenges for high-availability security applications. An active contributor to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), Prachi actively helps shape security standards and is recognized for her passion for solving intricate technical problems.
Sandhya Narayan is an accomplished Technical Program Manager (TPM) with extensive experience in leading and managing global, cross-functional teams to deliver complex security initiatives. She is an expert in information security, compliance, and risk management, with a deep understanding of secure product lifecycles and regulatory requirements. Currently, Sandhya serves as a TPM at Netflix, where she drives critical security programs and fosters cross-team collaboration. Previously, she held strategic roles at Adobe, SAP, eBay, and the Stanford Research Institute, leading key global security initiatives and strengthening security engagement across organizations.
author = {Prachi Jain and Sandhya Narayan},
title = {Beyond Blanket Freezes: Enabling Safe Innovation During Critical Events at Netflix},
year = {2026},
address = {Seattle, WA},
publisher = {USENIX Association},
month = mar
}
