Sam K.

Director of Engineering

Bangalore Urban, Karnataka, India18 yrs 7 mos experience

Key Highlights

19+ years in engineering leadership roles.
Expert in scaling cloud-native SaaS platforms.
Proven track record in reducing cloud costs by 40%.

Stackforce AI infers this person is a SaaS and Fintech expert with strong leadership in cloud-native solutions.

Contact

Skills

Core Skills

KubernetesProgram ManagementTechnical Delivery ManagementSolution ArchitectureProduct DevelopmentEntrepreneurshipService Delivery ManagementPlatform DevelopmentPhpWeb ApplicationsProject Management

Other Skills

Apache KafkaPostgreSQLMySQLMongoDBPaymentsRetailAzureEngineering ManagementBFSIAmazon Web Services (AWS)Full-Stack DevelopmentEducationNode.jsAWSStakeholder Management

About

Engineering Leader with 19+ years of expertise in scaling cloud-native SaaS platforms for retail, fintech and edtech. I have led teams of 40+, built Kubernetes-based microservices on Azure/AWS, reduced cloud costs by 40%, delivered/managed products with $6M–$10M ARR, and implemented GenAI and compliance frameworks—bridging hands-on technical depth with product-aligned leadership to drive execution and innovation.

Experience

18 yrs 7 mos

Total Experience

1 yr 11 mos

Average Tenure

1 yr 3 mos

Current Experience

Mishipay

Director of Engineering

Feb 2025 – Present · 1 yr 3 mos · Bengaluru, Karnataka, India · On-site

PRODUCT COMPANY
Product Engineering for Mishipay Retail POS solution, Client Deliveries and managing Infrastructure (including Azure, Confluent Kafka, Elastic Cloud and Mongo Atlas).
Markets - North America, Europe, Middleeast
Clientele - Avolta Hudson, Walmart, Flying Tiger, Dubai Duty Free, Carters, Grandiose, MLSE, Event Network and more.
Highlights -
Infrastructure & Architecture Leadership
Architected offline-first retail solution using distributed sync technology (Ditto), enabling uninterrupted POS operations
Scaled platform to handle 3x traffic surge during peak retail events (Black Friday and Dec peak, 100K+ transactions per day) with zero P95 latency degradation
Reduced infrastructure costs by 30%+ in the first Quarter of joining, through strategic Azure reserved instances, Kubernetes node pool optimization, and MongoDB Atlas cluster rightsizing, resource cleanup and more
Maintained 99.99% uptime across multi-region Azure Kubernetes infrastructure (West Europe primary, North Europe DR) serving retail clients globally
Implemented comprehensive observability stack with Datadog monitoring, automated alerting, and SRE best practices including post-deployment health checks
Led containerization initiative migrating legacy standalone services to Kubernetes, improving deployment velocity and resource efficiency
Optimized database performance across PostgreSQL, MySQL, and MongoDB Atlas, resolving critical connection leak issues and implementing auto-scaling policies
Spearheading strategic cloud migration from Azure to GCP to optimize costs and platform capabilities
Currently designing capability for multi region deployments, OLAP based reporting, reducing latency, data archiving and more
Team & Operational Impact
Leading an engineering team of 25+ (mix of frontend, backend, QA, Infosec, DevOps, Designers) managing microservices architecture supporting scan-and-go, self-checkout kiosks, cashdesk and mobile POS

KubernetesApache KafkaPostgreSQLMySQLMongoDBPayments+2

Career break

Health and well-being

Sep 2024 – Jan 2025 · 4 mos · Bengaluru, Karnataka, India

Rehabilitation and recovery after a spine fracture.

Vymo

Senior Engineering Manager

Jan 2024 – Aug 2024 · 7 mos · Bangalore Urban, Karnataka, India · On-site

PRODUCT COMPANY
Managed engineering delivery lifecycle for $10M ARR portfolio across Lending vertical.
Handled entire HDFC loan portfolio (2-Wheeler, 4-Wheeler, Gold Loan, Personal Loan, Business Loan, Loan on Property) and key clients including MRHFL, Aditya Birla Finance, and PNB.
Managed a 40-member team including 4 Project Managers, driving implementation, solutioning, and custom client engineering.
Strengthened delivery governance through structured stakeholder communication, SLA adherence, and effective escalation handling.

Technical Delivery ManagementProgram ManagementEngineering ManagementBFSIWeb Applications

Leadsquared

Director of Engineering

Nov 2019 – Dec 2023 · 4 yrs 1 mo · Bangalore Urban, Karnataka, India · On-site

PRODUCT COMPANY
Owned engineering and delivery for Education Cloud vertical, scaling to $6M ARR and 600+ customers.
Built a Portal Delivery vertical from scratch – delivered 50+ bespoke portals, later productized as a SaaS “Portal Builder” (strategic revenue driver).
Spearheaded customer-specific solutioning → productized modules for scale (e.g., Document Designer, Territory Management).
Partnered with Professional Services, delivering 50+ customer implementations across Lending, Education, and Insurance.
Reported to Chief Product Officer, drove cross-functional delivery alignment with product & sales.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)Full-Stack DevelopmentSolution ArchitectureEducationProduct DevelopmentNode.js+2

Coddle technologies

Director of Delivery and Co-founder

Jun 2015 – Oct 2019 · 4 yrs 4 mos · Bangalore Urban, Karnataka, India · On-site

SERVICES & PRODUCT COMPANY
Managing Engineering & Deliveries
o Setup Initial Team, did hands-on development while managing projects, Set up different verticals like Dev, QC, UI/UX, HR, Presales and liaised with Startups and SMEs driving new ideas and triggering growth
o With Zero investment, led growth to a 35-member team over a period of 50 months
o Achieved Average annual revenue of $250,000 servicing Clients from United States,
United Kingdom, Europe, Middle East, South Africa and APAC
o Successfully led Product Development for multiple Startups and helped them raise
$1m+ of funding
o 50+ Web and Mobile Apps delivered with some Key clients being International Trade Centre under United Nations Geneva, Alternative Airlines UK, Swisspeak Hotels and Lamborghini.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)Full-Stack DevelopmentStakeholder ManagementEntrepreneurshipService Delivery ManagementOffshore Software Development+12

Bally technologies

Lead Analyst

Mar 2014 – May 2015 · 1 yr 2 mos · Bangalore Urban, Karnataka, India · On-site

PRODUCT COMPANY
Leading the Bally Online Casino Game Integration Platform
Reporting to Sr. Director & Leading a Team of 10 for Game partner integration with Bally’s online gaming platform
Developing new API’s in Symfony Silex Framework for integrating new game partners. Monitoring Merge & Release activities
Maintenance activities and Production support of all websites (free and wager play) and gaming platforms

Platform DevelopmentPHPSilexSymfony FrameworkWeb Applications

Altisource

Senior Developer

Sep 2013 – Feb 2014 · 5 mos · Bangalore Urban, Karnataka, India · On-site

PRODUCT COMPANY
Sr Developer building a BI platform for Altisource Fintech business

PHPZendWeb Applications

Fortunesoft it innovations pvt ltd

Project Manager / Technical Lead

Apr 2010 – Sep 2013 · 3 yrs 5 mos · Bangalore Urban, Karnataka, India · On-site

SERVICES COMPANY
Project Manager (Delivery Lead) with approximately 45 reportees and directly reporting to CEO
Completed an Onsite assignment in Prague, Czech Republic in 2011 wherein two Drupal projects where developed simultaneously, coordinating with my offshore team
Joined the startup firm in 2010 and was instrumental in its growth to a 65-member Team reaching an annual average revenue of $500,000 and personally starting off as Senior Developer and eventually the Project Manager directly reporting to the CEO and heading development
Handled primarily North American and European Clients

PHPAgile MethodologiesWaterfall Project ManagementResource ManagementMySQLDrupal+6