---
title: "Basil B Thoppil - Head of delivery in Bengaluru | Tal"
description: "Meet Basil B Thoppil, Engineering Leader | Applied AI, saas & consumer | Built & Scaled Teams 2→30 | AI-Native Engineering Practices (3x Delivery Velocity) | Ex-Byju’s, Ex-Zynga | Hiring, Process & Architecture at Scale based in Bengaluru. AI stack includes antigravity, claude code, and gemini."
image: "https://tal.club/meet/basil-b-thoppil/share-image"
---

# Basil B Thoppil on Tal

## Headline

Engineering Leader \| Applied AI, saas & consumer \| Built & Scaled Teams 2→30 \| AI\-Native Engineering Practices \(3x Delivery Velocity\) \| Ex\-Byju’s, Ex\-Zynga \| Hiring, Process & Architecture at Scale

## About

I build and drive engineering organizations — product, processes, and architecture — and I optimize relentlessly for delivery speed without sacrificing reliability\. At Byju's, I scaled the Kids Learning App engineering org from 2 to 28\+ engineers and EMs over two years, building the hiring frameworks, OKRs, and interview processes that made that growth sustainable — while also leading cross\-border delivery for the U\.S\. market expansion\. As Founder/CTO of Kriya Learning and Pingbox, I built and operated a multi\-tenant B2B SaaS platform processing 1M\+ messages per campaign at 99\.9% reliability, cutting infrastructure costs 70% — proof that I can own systems end\-to\-end, not just organizations\. From 2021–2024 I ran a deliberate fractional practice — 2–3 concurrent CTO/architecture engagements — alongside founding and winding down Kriya Learning\. Most recently, I've focused on AI\-native engineering practice: building agentic workflows into discovery, development, code review, QA, CI, and deployment — driving a consistent 3x improvement in delivery velocity for enterprise clients\.

## Location

Bengaluru

## AI stack

antigravity

claude code

gemini

kimi

langchain

langsmith

## Work experience

Head of delivery at Superlinear Insights, May 2025 \- Present · 1 y 3 mo, Abu Dhabi Emirate, United Arab Emirates, Own delivery and platform architecture for AI\-native engineering engagements — agentic workflows and human\-in\-the\-loop systems — working alongside Superlinear co\-founder Swanand Pagnis\. Built agentic practices spanning discovery through deployment for enterprise clients \(a document\-AI product and a legacy\-to\-AI\-readiness data pipeline modernization\), achieving a 3x improvement in delivery velocity\. \[Recommendation from Vamsi K \(VP Engineering\) provided in the recommendation section\]

Consultant at Self Employed, Jun 2023 \- Present · 3 y 2 mo, Remote, Provided independent product delivery consulting alongside leadership roles, partnering with early\-stage startups and enterprise clients to define technology strategy, build engineering organizations, and deliver products from concept to market\. Key engagements: ➤ Terrantic \(US Agriculture & Transportation\) – Led architecture, implementation, and end\-to\-end delivery of a mobile application suite for intelligent bin tracking and field operations\. ➤ Healspan \(Healthcare SaaS\) – Partnered with the founding team of a seed\-stage startup transforming cashless claims processing for Indian hospitals\. Built the initial engineering team, established the product roadmap and delivery processes, and led development of the MVP with a strong focus on enabling scalable customer acquisition and commercial launch\. Recommendation available from Sabarinath U\., Founder & CEO, Healspan\.

Architect at LeapRoad, Dec 2023 \- Sep 2024 · 10 mos, Bengaluru, Leaproad AI \(Germany based client \- via Lektik Consulting\) Built and led the founding engineering team for an AI video/course\-creation platform — architecture, hiring, and delivery process from day one\. Shipped the video generation pipeline, content pipeline, and personalization engine; drove revenue to $100K MRR at peak within 6 months — a $1\.2M ARR run\-rate — through close engineering–GTM collaboration\. Directly managed the 10 member team including engineers & business analysts to execute the roadmap with 2 different pods\. 1\. High velocity GTM engineering team, and 2\. the long term product engineering pod\.

Fractional CTO at Bigfatphoenix Interactive, Apr 2023 \- Mar 2024 · 1 yr, Hired and stood up the initial engineering team for a seed\-stage startup; owned technical architecture and doubled down on engineering process to raise content production cadence, plus led children's\-data\-protection compliance work across geographies\.

CTO & Co\-Founder at Kriya Learning®, Aug 2021 \- Apr 2023 · 1 yr 9 mos, Bengaluru, Built the engineering org and system architecture for a live\-classroom ed\-product \(70% D7 retention in K12\), then engineered the pivot of an internal tool into Pingbox, a B2B SaaS messaging platform handling 1M\+ messages per campaign — designing for 99\.9% reliability and a 70% infrastructure cost reduction\. Ran parallel fractional engagements \(below\) to extend runway while building\. Kriya Learning \- product had industry best retention rate of, 70% D7 retention in k12 live classes segment\. Beyond building a customer facing product, engineering driven content and process pipeline to continuously launch fresh light weight games everyday, was vital for education programs\. A lean team pulled it off to release 1000s of mini\-games in a short span of time, with a strong tech backbone\. Kriya Learning wound down in April 2023 as I transitioned to full\-time consulting\. ✅ Strategy \(Product & Engineering\): Formulated and executed strategies, aligning technology with business needs and product objectives\. ✅ Culture: Built and mentored a high\-performing engineering team, with a focus on innovation, speed, and continuous learning\. ✅ Architecture: Led designing scalable and resilient system architectures, ensuring a perfect experience for 100s of students in an online session, very high interactive multiplayer experience ✅ Operational Efficiency: Beyond customer facing products, led innovation in the content pipeline, to build internal game engines \- which helped to launch 1000s of min\-games\. Pingbox handled 1M\+ messages per campaign at 99\.9% uptime over 6 months, and 70% reduction in compute achieved by moving from a nodejs based worker pool from django/python worker modules — cut infra spend by 70%\.

## Education

Bachelor of Technology \- BTech, Computer Science, Government Engineering College, Thrissur

[View the original profile](https://tal.club/meet/basil-b-thoppil)

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