Nikhil V S

Product-focused Full-Stack Engineer with 4+ years of experience building and scaling web applications in startup and high-growth environments. Experienced in owning features end-to-end from problem definition and product decisions to implementation and iteration based on user feedback. Strong focus on shipping fast, simplifying complexity, and building systems that deliver measurable user and business impact.

Comfortable working in ambiguous, early-stage environments with high autonomy and direct collaboration with founders and users.

Founder at Pencil Labs Limited (2025-09 – Present)

• Building an AI governance layer for businesses, enabling organisations to audit, control, and optimise their LLM usage across teams, architected as a multi-tenant SaaS with policy enforcement, prompt logging, and cost attribution.
• Shipped Vibetunes (vibetunes.space): a music publishing platform that reduces artist workflows by 40–60%, integrating AI-generated metadata, licensing workflows, and real-time collaboration via WebSockets.
• Shipped Wingman Maps (wingmanmaps.framer.ai): a group riding coordination app for motorcyclists using Mapbox Navigation SDK, GPX trail support, and foreground real-time location sharing; published to Google Play with a freemium subscription model.
• Shipped Fork (forkapp.cc): a full-stack consumer app, designed and deployed end-to-end with zero external dependencies.
• Iterated rapidly based on user feedback, shipping improvements in short cycles.
• Optimized frontend performance to achieve sub-50ms load times.

Senior Technical Lead (Frontend / Full-Stack) at Ernst & Young (2024-08 – 2025-09)

Global FinTech

• Led development of enterprise-scale fintech web applications, improving operational efficiency across 5+ markets.
• Translated complex business requirements into simple, user-friendly interfaces.
• Improved operational efficiency by ~35% through better UX and system design.
• Introduced automated testing (Jest, React Testing Library), increasing test coverage to ~80% and reducing defects.
• Implemented CI/CD practices, improving deployment consistency and reducing release friction.
• Collaborated with product and backend teams to translate business requirements into scalable technical solutions.

Software Development Engineer II at NeoITO Technologies (2022-09 – 2024-05)

Product and Startup accelerator

• Scaled a real-time analytics platform to handle 3× traffic growth by refactoring state management and optimising data flow.
• Built a configurable, component-driven system enabling faster product iteration by ~30%.
• Reduced frontend defects by ~25% through improved modular architecture and stricter data handling practices.
• Implemented analytics pipelines and tracking systems that improved conversion rates by ~20%.

Software Engineer at TILTLABS Consultancy Services (2022-01 – 2022-09)

3D AR/VR/XR Consultancy

• Built interactive, high-performance web frontends using React and modern JavaScript.
• Delivered responsive, accessible UI components optimised for performance-sensitive environments.
• Improved marketplace UX and responsiveness, increasing session duration by ~25%.

Front End Engineer at LogicPlum (2020-11 – 2021-12)

Healthcare Startup

• One of the first engineers responsible for frontend architecture across multiple AI-driven products.
• Built visualization systems turning complex datasets to actionable insights for non-technical users.
• Helped reduce operational workflows by ~40% through improved UX and system design.

Bachelor of Technology in Mechanical Engineering – University of Kerala (2014 – 2018)