[1][2] He has previously served as the Director of the Vikram Sarabhai Space Center and the Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre.

[5] Sivan is the son of a mango farmer and studied in a Tamil medium Government school in Mela Sarakkalvilai Village and later in Vallankumaranvilai, in Kanyakumari district.

He then got a master's degree in aerospace engineering from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore in 1982, and started working in ISRO.

[9] Sivan worked on the design and development of launch vehicles for Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).

[15] On 25 January 2021, Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) has registered a complaint against Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman and Secretary, Department of Space (DoS), K Sivan, over allegations of irregularities in recruiting his son in ISRO’s Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre (LPSC) in Valiamala, Thiruvananthapuram, by bypassing norms.