Headline

Agentic AI @ Deccan | ex founder and CTO/CPO, Zapr (Exit to Samsung) | Senior Engineering Leader | Data Platform & AI Expert | Team Builder

About

Engineering leader with 15+ years of experience building scalable data infrastructure, distributed systems and AI enabled solutions. Proven track record founding and scaling a media technology company from inception to successful acquisition, building strong teams, and developing cutting-edge solutions in data processing and Machine Learning. Expertise in managing complex data platforms handling petabytes of data, optimising performance, leading large teams of engineers and collaborating across global locations. Demonstrated success in reducing costs, improving system reliability, and driving technological innovation in high-impact environments.

Location

Bengaluru

Work experience

ML Lead at Deccan AI, Mar 2026 - Present · 7 mos, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India, Advancing Enterprise AI through Deccan's scaled human in the loop services

Director of Software Engineering; Group Head for Data & Intelligence Group at Samsung R&D Institute India - Bangalore, Apr 2025 - Mar 2026 · 1 yr, Hybrid, ● Global lead for the automatic content recognition technology, driving over 20% of Samsung Ads revenue. Built a fresh team to take over the stack, reduced costs by over 30%, introduced scientific bench-marking to drive future improvements across gaming, linear, ads and OTT categories. ● Global lead for the core data infrastructure domain, responsible for the central data platform built on Snowflake with petabyte scale data. Improved cost per query by 11x, and cost per million rows ingested by 4x. ● Developed AI based headless business intelligence to enable standardized metrics and dimensions for the business, queriable by natural language. ● Site lead for machine learning and AI in Bangalore, driving classical ML and advanced generative AI solutions for the Samsung DSP.

Director of Software Engineering for Data & Platform Intelligence at Samsung R&D Institute India - Bangalore, Oct 2023 - Apr 2025 · 1 yr 7 mos, Hybrid, Led transformation of Samsung Ads’ core data platform addressing critical issues in cost management, data freshness and quality ● Reduced cost by 40% to stay within budget after taking over ● Improved data freshness by 85% to enhance usability of the platform ● Collaborated with teams across multiple time zones to facilitate migration of critical workloads to the new platform ● Developed improved models for creating user segments based on viewership preferences using large language models ● Developed a universal semantic layer to provide a headless BI solution to ensure consistency in reported metrics across the organization

Director of Software Engineering for Reporting & Insights at Samsung R&D Institute India - Bangalore, Apr 2022 - Sep 2023 · 1 yr 6 mos, On-site, Global lead for Reporting and site-lead for Machine learning in Bangalore, for Samsung Ads Led 30+ engineers in the areas of Reporting and machine learning in Bangalore, focused on data platform enhancements and development of ML powered forecasting systems for media planning. ● Developed ad campaign forecasting solutions from scratch using state of the art transformer models for time series, supporting zero shot inference and achieving median accuracy of over 90% ● Reduced cost of reporting pipelines by 50% and improved system reliability, reducing incidents

Co-Founder and Head of New Products & Research at Zapr Media Labs (acquired by Samsung), Mar 2020 - May 2022 · 2 yrs 3 mos, India, Founded and built media technology company from ground up to successful acquisition by Samsung. Spearheaded the strategic initiative to diversify Zapr's product portfolio by investing in cutting-edge research areas from 2020 to 2022. ● Led a multidisciplinary team in exploring new frontiers of technology, with a focus on computer vision, speech recognition, and speech synthesis. ● Directed research efforts towards the development of innovative products, including voice bots and contact center analytics platforms, aimed at enhancing productivity and efficiency in contact center operations. ● Developed state of the art text to speech and speech to text models in Indian English and Hindi to develop voice-bot technology. Deployed to handle feedback calls for an e-commerce platform ● Developed computer vision powered devices for capturing attention metrics for TV viewership in households in collaboration with a leading Sports TV network in India

Co-founder and CTO at Zapr Media Labs (acquired by Samsung), Feb 2012 - Mar 2020 · 8 yrs 2 mos, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India, Started Zapr in 2012 and led the organization as CTO, leading a team of 70+ engineers ● Architected and developed audio-based Automated Content Recognition (ACR) system deployed to 50+ million mobile devices, partnering with leading apps in India ● Led development of industry-leading fingerprinting algorithms recognised as highest performing in MIREX (Music Information Retrieval Exchange) ● Led a diverse team of over 120 professionals, fostering a culture of collaboration, innovation, and excellence. ● Built scalable data products for broadcasters and advertisers across multiple countries including India, UAE, Egypt, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia ● Developed TV viewership data platform 1000x larger than official TRP provider in India

Deputy Manager at Feedback Ventures, May 2010 - Jan 2012 · 1 yr 9 mos, Gurugram, Haryana, India, Worked on multiple advisory projects in the real estate and townships space

Summer Trainee at HT Media Ltd, Apr 2009 - Jun 2009 · 3 mos, Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh, India, Market research for the launch of a local edition of Hindustan - a Hindi daily

Education

PGDM, Management, Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad

B. Tech and M. Tech, Ocean Engineering and Naval Architecture, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur