Nikhil Rao

Director of Engineering

Bengaluru, Karnataka, India18 yrs 9 mos experience

AI EnabledHighly Stable

Key Highlights

Built a $10M+ ARR monetization vertical.
Pioneered Google Assistant's integration layer.
Drove 10x growth in DSP CTV business line.

Stackforce AI infers this person is a leader in AdTech and AI development with a strong focus on product innovation.

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Skills

Core Skills

Engineering ManagementProduct DevelopmentMonetization StrategyProduct InnovationBusiness DevelopmentAi DevelopmentAdtech EngineeringPlatform DevelopmentAi IntegrationMl Model Development

Other Skills

Streaming MonetizationTechnical StrategyCross-functional LeadershipMonetizationRevenue ScalingCross-device Performance AdvertisingProduct LaunchEcosystem PartnershipsConversational AIAdTechMachine LearningInfrastructure EngineeringAPI DevelopmentConversational InterfacesData Engineering

About

Experienced Engineering Director with a strong track record of building teams and shipping exciting products in ad-tech, cloud technologies and voice assistants. Co-founder of Actions on Google for Google Assistant. Currently driving innovation at Moloco as Engineering Director, disrupting monetization for online streaming and hiring across all levels. Open to connecting with industry professionals.

Experience

18 yrs 9 mos

Total Experience

7 yrs 9 mos

Average Tenure

3 yrs 3 mos

Current Experience

Moloco

Director of Engineering

Feb 2023 – Present · 3 yrs 3 mos · Bengaluru, Karnataka, India · On-site

Business Leadership (0 to 1 Scaling):
Built the Streaming Monetization vertical from the ground up, scaling revenue from $0 to $10M+ ARR. Led a cross-functional organization spanning Engineering, Product, and Data Science to deliver monetization services for premier providers (Viacom18, Hotstar, TVing, Tubi).
Technical Strategy & Architecture:
Stepped into the Chief Architect role to spearhead technical strategy for Streaming and Connected TV (CTV). Architecting industry-leading solutions for cross-device performance advertising and advanced household profiling algorithms.
Product Innovation & Growth:
Drove 10x growth in the DSP CTV business line within 6 months. Successfully launched high-impact products including Web Visits and LeadGen optimization, while securing critical ecosystem partnerships to leverage premium and open supply.

Streaming MonetizationTechnical StrategyCross-functional LeadershipProduct InnovationEngineering ManagementProduct Development

Google

2 roles

Sr. Staff Software Engineer

Feb 2008 – Feb 2023 · 15 yrs · Mountain View, California, United States

15-year tenure evolving from core systems engineering to AI and AdTech platforms.
Conversational AI & Platform Leadership:
Founding member of the Actions on Google developer platform. Architected the integration layer powering Google Assistant and third-party services. Pioneered early experimentation with GenAI and LLMs (c. 2016) to evolve conversational agents from command-based systems to predictive, intelligent interfaces.
AdTech & Machine Learning at Scale:
Engineered ML models for Ads Quality, Smart Targeting, and Auction systems. Delivered critical infrastructure powering multi-billion dollar products, including Dynamic Search Ads, Performance Max, and DemandGen. Built some of the earliest data lakes in AdTech (c. 2011) to enable large-scale predictions for Search and YouTube Ads.
Core Systems & Infrastructure:
Contributed to Linux Kernel development, focusing on memory management, CPU scheduling, and system performance optimization. Played a pivotal role in the early iterations of containerization technologies and the precursors to Kubernetes (K8s).

Conversational AIAdTechMachine LearningInfrastructure EngineeringAI DevelopmentAdTech Engineering