Siddharta Govindaraj

Co-Founder

Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India23 yrs 2 mos experience

Most Likely To SwitchAI Enabled

Key Highlights

Led global Gen AI training for 1500+ engineers.
Authored 'Test Driven Python Development' book.
Coached teams to achieve 400% productivity improvement.

Stackforce AI infers this person is a Fintech and EdTech expert with strong capabilities in AI and Agile methodologies.

Contact

Skills

Core Skills

Generative AiCurriculum DevelopmentData ScienceDeep LearningFront-end DevelopmentTraining & DevelopmentAgile MethodologiesCoachingContent CreationBusiness OwnershipProduct ManagementDevopsSoftware CraftsmanshipAndroid DevelopmentSoftware Development

Other Skills

Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG)AI AgentsFine TuningTensorFlowPandas (Software)MatplotlibReact.jsJavaScriptArtificial Intelligence (AI)Business TransformationScrumIT ConsultingPythonTechnical WritingSocial Media Communications

About

I help software & data engineers become 10x more effective. This takes many forms -- developing and delivering trainings in-person and at scale (self-learn content), coaching teams in their product context, and mentoring engineers one on one. Recently my focus has been on building AI based applications and adapting software engineering principles to AI systems. I am a generalist, with full stack end to end experience from the web front end to the back end all the way to deployment and devops on cloud environments. This enables me to help teams get productive across the value chain and not just optimise one set of skills. I am the author of the book "Test Driven Python Development" published by Packt and have spoken at PyCon India (thrice), Pycon Italia and PyConf Hyderabad.

Experience

23 yrs 2 mos

Total Experience

10 yrs 2 mos

Average Tenure

19 yrs 3 mos

Current Experience

Paypal

4 roles

Gen AI Trainer (Freelance)

Promoted

Oct 2024 – Present · 1 yr 6 mos

PayPal is going all-in on Gen AI across the organisation, but has a knowledge gap with regards to employee skillset on this topic. Skill gaps include both general Gen AI knowledge (use of tools, developing AI solutions) as well as knowledge of internal platforms to build and deploy solutions.
I partner with PayPal to solve this critical requirement by leading their Gen AI technical training program worldwide - from content development to delivering training to scaling strategies. Topics include Coding assistants (Cursor, Claude Code), RAG, Agentic AI, MCP, LLM Fine Tuning, AI Evals.
Developed training on internal Gen AI platform in lockstep with platform teams for Day 1 employee skill up. Heavily customised to company internal development platform. Content development time for new topics in Gen AI has been reduced from 6+ months to a few weeks enabling engineers to skill up on the latest developments.
Scaled up a train-the-trainer system that is able to enable trainers with no genai background to effectively deliver the Gen AI content. This system has trained over 1500+ software engineers worldwide across the organisation in just a few months, closing out critical skill gaps at speed and scale with 60+ NPS rating
Developed self-learn video content to rapidly scale Gen AI education across the entire pool of 12000+ software engineers

Generative AIRetrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG)AI AgentsFine TuningCurriculum Development

Data Science Trainer (Freelance)

Promoted

Feb 2021 – Sep 2024 · 3 yrs 7 mos

Engaged as a consultant to run the Data Science training program. This involved both content preparation as well the training delivery at scale.
Reworked the data analytics training to expand the scope from data scientists teams and include business and fraud analytics teams (a huge population that was never served before)
Developed and ran tensorflow programs for data scientists customised to internal data & MLOps platforms
Developed new joiner tech program for data engineers. Program has been deployed worldwide to every new data joiner across the organisation
Developed and ran a data program for new college graduate hire
Topics: Deep Learning, Tensorflow, MLFlow, Pandas, Data Visualisation, Big Query, Looker

Deep LearningTensorFlowPandas (Software)MatplotlibData Science

Front End Technical Trainer (Freelance)

Aug 2015 – Jan 2021 · 5 yrs 5 mos

Freelance consultant providing Front End (Javascript) and Python technical training for PayPal in Chennai and Bengaluru
Topics covered are: Functional Javascript, React JS, Redux, Node.js, Python, Django

React.jsJavaScriptData ScienceArtificial Intelligence (AI)Training & DevelopmentFront-end Development

Agile Consultant

May 2013 – Jun 2016 · 3 yrs 1 mo

External independent consultant for PayPal. This is the largest agile transformation ever with 400+ teams across 11 locations.
Trained and developed internal facilitators to build agile competency within the organisation
Created an Agile Community of Practice from the ground up to reach over 500 people across roles and business units
Coached and supported over 40 teams across business units. Worked across Product Management, PMO and Engineering to transform their behaviour. Partnered with directors and senior management to influence them to drive change and remove organisational impediments
Worked towards building strong teams, from team identity to team collaboration to team delivery using the Drexler-Sibbet-Forrester Team Performance Indicator model
Provided technical coaching and workshops for team members on technical agile practices such as Test Driven Development and Refactoring

Business TransformationScrumCoachingAgile MethodologiesIT Consulting

Playful python

Owner

Mar 2022 – Present · 4 yrs 1 mo · Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India

I run the Playful Python brand through which we deliver python learning content. We run the site playfulpython.com, the youtube channel playfulpythontv and the twitter stream @playfulpython. Through these, we provide python learning in your preferred way to learn, be it long form articles, videos, or short form content.

PythonTechnical WritingSocial Media CommunicationsContent CreationBusiness Ownership

Ford motor company

Software Craftsmanship Coach

May 2017 – Dec 2021 · 4 yrs 7 mos · Chennai Area, India

Delivered workshops and paired with team members on software craftsmanship practices. Features that used to take more than two weeks to develop were completed in half a week (~400% productivity improvement)
Coached the team create a DevOps pipeline that incorporated integrating end to end code quality checks and deployment into the organisation's private cloud
Transformed a pure Java team into a multi-functional full stack team. This involved Javascript and Angular coaching so that every developer could work full stack as well as Java, Selenium and Cucumber training so that manual testers could transition into automation and eventually main line development.
Developed in-house mentors in Javascript and automation who can help the team after I am done with the engagement

Cloud ComputingDevOpsSoftware CraftsmanshipMicroservicesLean Software Development

Hike messenger

Agile Consultant

Sep 2016 – Feb 2017 · 5 mos · New Delhi Area, India

Agile process coaching and craftsmanship coaching on Android and Python code.

Swift (Programming Language)Software CraftsmanshipPython (Programming Language)Android Development

Open coffee club chennai

Co-Founder

Aug 2007 – Dec 2013 · 6 yrs 4 mos

Co-founder of the Chennai Open Coffee Club in August 2007. This was the first OCC in India. It has since spread to many cities all over the country.

Community Outreach

Silver stripe software

Founder

Jan 2007 – Present · 19 yrs 3 mos · Chennai Area, India

I started Silver Stripe Software Pvt Ltd, the company through which I do my consulting. We also develop products and content. Right now we run the site Playful Python - https://www.playfulpython.com

KanbanProduct ManagementStart-upsAgile Project ManagementBusiness Ownership

Innvo systems pte ltd

2 roles

Systems Developer

Dec 2002 – Nov 2006 · 3 yrs 11 mos · Singapore

Jointly lead and managed a team to develop a web browser for mobile phones. The browser has been successfully ported for multiple customers on different platforms.
Cut delivery cycle time from many months to three weeks. This involved setting up automated unit tests, plus creating our own functional test automation framework.
Designed core algorithms for the layout of a web page on the screen and for rendering complex pages on a small screen.
Introduced agile project methodologies to the company in 2004 and implemented the Crystal Clear and Scrum methodologies along with Extreme Programming and Kanban practices.
Worked with management to champion agile through the product development organization.
Involved in setting up and recruiting candidates for the Bangalore branch of the company

C (Programming Language)Algorithm DesignPython (Programming Language)Agile MethodologiesEngineering ManagementSoftware Development

Intern

Jun 2002 – Nov 2002 · 5 mos · Singapore

I spent six months as an intern at Innvo Systems on behalf of the National University of Singapore. I worked on migrating an embedded system deployment tool from Perl to Python.