Ayan Sarkar — Director of Engineering
With 22 years leading engineering organizations at Amazon, DigitalOcean, and other global technology companies, I’ve learned that the hardest problems in technology are rarely technical. They are human. I work at the intersection of engineering excellence and conscious leadership—building platforms and teams that scale without losing clarity, resilience, or purpose. I currently lead AI/ML and PaaS engineering at DigitalOcean, where I built the India AI/ML and PaaS engineering hub from the ground up, scaling from zero to 60+ engineers in 8 months. Prior to this, I spent over a decade at Amazon, scaling B2B engineering teams from 4 to 60+, improving gender diversity by 20%, and leading the launch of products that delivered measurable customer and business impact. My leadership approach combines technical rigor with systems thinking and philosophical grounding, including principles drawn from Vedic thought. In practice, this means building scalable platforms alongside sustainable teams, making data-driven decisions without losing human context, and leading through ambiguity with calm, clarity, and accountability. Through my writing at Learn Lead Elevate (learnleadelevate.substack.com), I explore questions many engineering leaders quietly wrestle with: how we scale ourselves as we scale teams, how we lead with ambition without losing wisdom, and how we navigate major transitions—growth, pivots, burnout, reinvention—without losing integrity. I write on leadership in the age of AI, conscious career transitions, technical strategy, and building organizations that endure. I’m drawn to thoughtful, honest conversations with senior engineering leaders, founders, and CXOs grappling with complexity, scale, and the human side of technology. I believe the most effective leadership emerges from curiosity, reflection, and the courage to ask uncomfortable questions.
Stackforce AI infers this person is a SaaS and E-commerce leader with extensive experience in AI/ML and engineering management.
Location: Hyderabad, Telangana, India
Experience: 21 yrs 5 mos
Skills
- Ai/ml Platforms & Systems
- Team Building And Scaling
- Professional Mentoring
- Executive Coaching
- Customer And Stakeholder Focus
- Global Engineering Leadership
- Agile Leadership
- Technology Expertise And Innovation
- Software Design
Career Highlights
- Built AI/ML engineering hub from zero to 60+ engineers.
- Improved gender diversity by 20% at Amazon.
- Authored a leadership newsletter with 85+ subscribers.
Work Experience
DigitalOcean
Sr. Director of Engineering, AI/ML & PaaS (1 yr 3 mos)
https://learnleadelevate.substack.com
Writer | Mentor | Coach – Learn Lead Elevate (2 yrs)
Amazon
Sr Manager, Software Development (2 yrs 10 mos)
Software Development Manager - III (5 yrs 5 mos)
Software Development Manager - II (1 yr 3 mos)
Technical Program Manager II (1 yr)
Cognizant
Senior Associate, Technology Functional Lead (3 yrs 5 mos)
Lexmark
Senior Software Developer (1 yr 5 mos)
Interra Systems
Sr. Member of Technical Staff (2 yrs 4 mos)
Member of Technical Staff (1 yr 3 mos)
Infosys
Software Engineer (1 yr 3 mos)
Education
Bachelor of Tech (BTech) at University of Calcutta
at La Martiniere for Boys, Kolkata
at M. P. Birla Foundation Higher Secondary School
