Oct 2025 – Present · 7 mos · Bengaluru, Karnataka, India · Remote

• I work with conscious people and operators to bring AI from idea to implementation
• Guide product and engineering decisions at the intersection of AI capability and human need
• What began as conversations with fellow engineering managers, product leads, and founders over coffee turned into something I could not stop doing.
• Helping businesses figure out how AI could actually work for them, not in theory, but in production, in their workflows, in their products.
• Early on it was free, driven by genuine interest and good will.
• But the market made it clear there was a real need, and I realised I enjoyed this more than anything else I was doing.
• I stayed close to my own curiosity throughout. Exploring AI capabilities in development, in product, in workflow design. That exploration is not separate from the work, it is the work.

Jun 2025 – Oct 2025 · 4 mos · Bengaluru, Karnataka, India · On-site

• Heavily invested in AI media and community initiatives, with evolving product layer.
• Shipping practical improvements:
• Reduced AWS costs from ~$5K/month to ~$800 through infra cleanup and usage optimisation
• Reworked a messy database layer by fixing N+1 queries, adding materialised views, and normalising schemas
• Broke down a Python and Node monolith into event-driven microservices
• Built agent-style LLM workflows with retrieval, planning, and guardrails
• Shipped usable RAG search, evaluation harnesses, and internal tools that teams could build on
• In initial month of joining I realised that the direction of the role wasn't aligned with where I wanted to grow.
• I kept the HR team in the loop from the early days, was transparent about the misalignment, and made the decision to step away before completing probation rather than waiting it out.
• This role clarified me that I want to be in environments where I can go deep on building and shipping AI products end to end and not just adjacent to AI, but at the centre of it.
• That clarity has shaped every decision since.

Jun 2024 – May 2025 · 11 mos · Bengaluru, Karnataka, India · On-site

• Lead the platform transformation while keeping a live B2B SaaS running for millions of daily requests.
• The tech needed evolution; the business didn't need to stop.
• These were the early days of figuring out how AI could work in real production environments, not demos, not experiments, but scalable, reliable systems that could actually run a business. We weren't just adding AI features. We were rebuilding the platform with AI as the foundation.
• What I led:
• Migrated a live monolith to microservices with zero downtime, millions of daily requests in flight throughout
• Redesigned the database layer entirely: normalised schemas, removed nested JSON anti-patterns, added proper indexing and query optimisation
• Shifted from hardcoded customer configuration to a self-serve model, unlocking scale without engineering bottlenecks
• Brought load times down from 5-6 seconds to under 1 second
• Reduced the hotfix team from 15 developers to 2 part-time, a direct result of the platform becoming genuinely stable
• This is where the work got genuinely interesting. We weren't bolting AI onto an existing product, we were rethinking procurement workflows from the ground up with AI at the centre:
• Built AI agents that automated end-to-end procurement workflows
• Developed LLM-powered systems that interacted directly with suppliers to negotiate deals, representing the business in live conversations
• Added predictive analytics for supplier selection
• Designed the platform so AI and human decision-making worked in tandem
• At the time, this kind of human-AI negotiation loop in a live B2B context was genuinely frontier work. We were figuring out the playbook as we went.
• The CEO had a gift for selling vision, then trusting us to build fast. That environment taught me when to choose speed over perfection. Balance matters. Knowing the difference is the skill.
• Multiple engineering leaders moved on around the same time, a natural end to a natural chapter.

Jan 2024 – May 2024 · 4 mos

• Founder: ex-Google Program Head for Asia Pacific, ex-MD of IDEO India, mentor to leaders I admired. Co-founder: sharp IIT graduate, high energy, deeply thoughtful.
• This felt like the right group to build with.
• Someone mentioned another team built a feature in a week. We estimated two weeks for ours.
• I took it as a personal challenge. Built the first working AI chatbot by evening.
• "Ask Llama".
• Scalable, production-ready, clean architecture.
• Users actually found value. Real feedback from beta testers, Product Hunt users, friends, family.
• People said it helped them with daily psychological challenges. Genuine impact.
• That product is still one I'm proud of.
• The team I built was capable of running independently. Tech infrastructure was solid and costs were optimized.
• Llama's core business was wellbeing and leadership coaching, not technology sales.
• I was the largest tech expense.Stepping back to consultant made business sense. Company margins improved. I stayed involved. Team continued shipping great work. Everyone won.

Nov 2021 – Feb 2024 · 2 yrs 3 mos

• Right opportunity at the right time.
• Learned as much about people and leadership as I did about technology.
• Built the entire tech infrastructure from scratch.
• AWS setup, DKIM configuration, email automation, newsletter systems, AI chatbot integration.
• Core product was an LMS platform built on Open edX and Moodle.
• Clients:
• McKinsey & Company, Deloitte, BOSH, BCG, LinkedIn, Intuit, Aditya Birla Group.
• Delivered quality work that met enterprise standards.
• I discovered I'm stronger at architecture than pure implementation.
• After years at HotWax working on open source, complex ERPs, and multi-client projects, building my own systems at Llama showed me what I truly enjoy.
• Designing systems. Thinking through scalability.
• Reading architecture patterns.
• Watching designs handle millions of users across different use cases.
• That clarity shaped my career path forward.

Aug 2021 – Nov 2021 · 3 mos

• Shifted to consulting and delivery leadership.
• Managed multiple client teams simultaneously.
• Defined technical roadmaps.
• Reviewed architecture decisions.
• Ensured teams shipped on schedule.
• Deepened my open source involvement. Apache OFBiz contributions became core daily work, not side projects.
• Contributed a feature that got merged into the main codebase. Later discovered it was helping thousands of businesses globally. No attribution needed. Just working quietly in production systems everywhere.
• That kind of impact resonates differently.
• This wasn't a comfortable environment. It demanded precision and discipline.
• Variable names got reviewed as carefully as production code.
• Clean architecture and reliable systems were non-negotiable.
• Learned design patterns that matter.
• Data normalization principles. Writing queries that scale.
• Managing systems under real load.
• Led UI teams and discovered what makes users adopt or abandon software.
• Foundation I still build on.

Nov 2018 – Aug 2021 · 2 yrs 9 mos

• Started taking ownership of architecture, UX, and database design across client projects.
• Hands-on work scaling systems and refactoring legacy code.
• Client calls often happened late at night.
• After resolving critical production issues, I'd decompress with a beer. Not celebration. Just breathing space.
• Every challenge felt like an opportunity. Performance tuning.
• Data integrity problems. Making interfaces work for real users.
• High-pressure environment, but deeply rewarding work.

Jan 2016 – Nov 2018 · 2 yrs 10 mos

• Started with complex business challenges from day one.
• Automotive clients. Large marketplaces. ERP workflows.
• Not cutting-edge tech stack, but serious business complexity.
• Handled product catalogs, inventory management, pricing engines, and large-scale integrations.
• Worked with Alliance team in the US. Multiple automotive brands.
• Built a large marketplace, then faced an interesting challenge.
• They needed 35 additional ecommerce portals for sub-brands.
• Building 35 separate systems wasn't feasible.
• Architected one platform that powered the main marketplace plus 35 brand sites.
• Same architecture. No performance degradation.
• Handled lakhs of products with consistent response times.
• That problem taught me more about scalable architecture than any formal training could.

Nov 2015 – Oct 2016 · 11 mos

• Started during third year of college.
• Part of a cohort of 50 trainees. Within months, many dropped out due to intensity.
• 12-hour days. Daily code reviews. Weekly technical assessments.
• High pressure environment.
• I wasn't the top performer academically.
• But I showed up consistently. Kept learning. Kept building.
• This phase shaped my professional discipline.
• Taught me that consistent effort and genuine intent often matter more than raw talent.

Jun 2013 – Mar 2015 · 1 yr 9 mos · Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India

• Started with a technical blog focused on security and penetration testing.
• Built audience of 3,000+ followers interested in Linux, security tools, and ethical hacking techniques.
• Inbound interest turned into client work. Built full-stack web and mobile applications for startups and small businesses.
• Built Pinakiney, a bulk WhatsApp marketing SaaS platform in 2014-15.
• Strong product-market fit. Businesses familiar with bulk SMS adopted it quickly. Revenue covered my college expenses comfortably.
• Made a deliberate decision to shut it down after consulting with industry veterans.
• TRAI regulations were evolving.
• Doing it right meant significant compliance investment. Doing it wrong meant legal risk.
• Chose to pursue industry experience instead of continuing as founder.
• Wanted to deepen my engineering expertise before attempting entrepreneurship seriously.
• Key decision: Turned down the immediate revenue to invest in long-term learning. Six years at HotWax were demanding but built the foundation I needed.
• The entrepreneurial interests stayed with me. Later roles at Llama and Aerchain as core team member satisfied that dimension.
• Looking back from 2026, that 2015 decision was right.
• I learned Ship quickly. Validate real demand.
• Operate efficiently. Focus on actual customer outcomes.
• Understand when to prioritize learning over immediate growth.
• Real industry experience beats startup theater.