---
title: "Vandana Kumari - SDE-2(AI Native) in Gurugram | Tal"
description: "Meet Vandana Kumari, Software Engineer, PdE @Mercari | Building Global(Cross border) Product at Scale | Java, GoLang, Microservices, Distributed Systems, AI Native | ex - @UniAcco @Wozo Gaming | BTech CSE based in Gurugram. AI stack includes codex and cursor."
image: "https://tal.club/meet/vandana-kumari/share-image"
---

# Vandana Kumari on Tal

## Headline

Software Engineer, PdE @Mercari \| Building Global\(Cross border\) Product at Scale \| Java, GoLang, Microservices, Distributed Systems, AI Native \| ex \- @UniAcco @Wozo Gaming \| BTech CSE

## About

I build backend systems that scale — and ship features that move numbers\. At Mercari, I engineered an Image Search system now driving ¥77\.4M GMV/month at 1801% ROI, serving 2M\+ users across one of Asia’s largest C2C marketplaces\. I’ve contributed to multi\-country product launches \(HK, TW, US\), improved latency SLOs from <1% → 65% compliance, and owned features end\-to\-end — from system design to production monitoring\. Beyond backend, I work across the frontEnd using AI\-native workflows \(Cursor, Copilot\) and have led org\-wide AI initiatives as a single\-stakeholder pDE — driving POCs that cut across product, design, and engineering\. I’m deeply interested in GenAI and LLMs & RAG — not just as a trend, but as tools I actively integrate into how I build and ship products faster\. Outside of building: I conduct engineering interviews, mentor junior engineers, and contribute to org\-wide growth and planning initiatives\. Outside of Work \- I love writing my thoughts, Learnings & Sharing what’s beneficial for others that I could know earlier\. My Medium Blog \- https://medium\.com/@vandana\.igdtuw/i\-built\-an\-image\-search\-system\-heres\-what\-i\-actually\-learned\-b56abacdc06f

## Location

Gurugram

## AI stack

codex

cursor

## Work experience

SDE\-2\(AI Native\) at Mercari India, Feb 2026 \- Present · 7 mos, Built an Image Search system enabling users to discover similar products using images by designing scalable search APIs and integrating similarity\-based retrieval, embeddings, vector DB across Mercari catalog services, increased ¥77\.4M/month GMV lift and 1,801% ROI, used by 2M\+ monthly search UUs\. Authored TDDs to drive architecture decisions and align with business requirements\. • Expanded scope into full\-stack product engineering \- independently driving frontend development, PRDs, EDDs, and UI/UX design end\-to\-end using AI\-native development workflows \(Cursor, Copilot\), shipping features E2E at accelerated pace; delivered Like utility features with \+30\.7% / \+29\.6% / \+40\.1% improvement \(iOS/Android/Web\) independently\. • Developed the Global One Product app, owning the backend services\. Delivered 6\+ features including partial SDUI homescreen, deep link generator, account management, checkout service, item details screen & SERP\(SpringBoot\)\. • \- Launched in HK, TW and US, cutting per\-market localization integration effort by 40%\. • Led development of search and metadata APIs and a notification generator service in Java, directly improving product GMV; • Integrated circuit breakers across multiple upstream microservices, tuned error threshold from 1,000 → 5,000, reducing CB\-triggered errors by 65% in production, improving system resilience and fault tolerance\. • Implemented SLOs, monitors, and PagerDuty alerts via Datadog across Backend, BFF endpoints \- deployed error budget burn alerts and reduced unnecessary on\-call pages by 50% via threshold tuning, pages, significantly improving observability and incident response time\. improved Image Search latency SLO from <1% → 65% compliance \(p95 upper bound 1\.5s\)\. • Created CI/CD pipelines and automated database schema migrations using Goose for master service via environment\-scoped GitHub Actions workflows \(dev \+ prod\) reducing manual deployment effort by 60%, enabling safe version transitions\.

Software Engineer at Mercari India, Jun 2024 \- Feb 2026 · 1 yr 9 mos

Software Engineer Intern at Mercari India, Jan 2024 \- Jun 2024 · 6 mos

Software Engineer Intern at UniAcco, Jun 2023 \- Aug 2023 · 3 mos, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

Mentor at Protégé IGDTUW, Feb 2023 \- Jun 2023 · 5 mos

Software Developer Intern at Wozo Gaming, Oct 2022 \- Dec 2022 · 3 mos

Machine Learning Intern at INDIRA GANDHI DELHI TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY FOR WOMEN, Jun 2022 \- Jul 2022 · 2 mos, New Delhi, Delhi, India

## Education

Bachelor of Technology \- BTech, Computer Science, Indira Gandhi Delhi Technical University for Women

Xll, PCM with computer science, kendriya vidyalaya

[View the original profile](https://tal.club/meet/vandana-kumari)

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