Rishabh Jain

Engineering Leader and former CTO with 12+ years of experience scaling cross-functional teams (40+ engineers) and architecting high-scale systems. Specialized in technical operations, integrating LLM-driven AI solutions, and delivering mission-critical platforms, including enterprise SDKs processing 1M+ daily requests and national-level GenAI products. Proven record of boosting engineering velocity by 30% and cultivating data-driven, high-performance cultures.

Head of Tech Operations at Spark Eighteen (2025-03 – Present)

Directed technical operations and AI-driven optimizations for a 40-person engineering organization to ensure on-budget delivery of multiple enterprise products.

• Directed technical operations and AI-driven optimizations for a 40-person engineering organization to ensure on-budget delivery of multiple enterprise products.
• Managed end-to-end delivery of 6–8 concurrent client products by aligning engineering and design teams with stakeholder roadmaps.
• Slashed project proposal and estimation turnaround from 5 days to hours by implementing automated, AI-driven workflows powered by multi-model agents.
• Reduced manual management oversight and mid-sprint conflicts by enforcing standardized delivery checklists that eliminated execution gaps.
• Accelerated resource deployment and guaranteed consistent staffing by establishing a robust engineering supply chain of internal staff and agency partners.
• Reduced end-to-end hiring timelines to under a week by building assessment pipelines leveraging AI tools and automated interviewing platforms.
• Engineered a 360-degree feedback system capturing weekly and monthly performance data, resulting in objective, data-driven annual evaluations.

Senior Engineering Manager at SamagraX (2024-08 – 2025-02)

Led the delivery of high-scale, compliant AI platforms and LLM-driven applications for critical national government initiatives.

• Led the delivery of high-scale, compliant AI platforms and LLM-driven applications for critical national government initiatives.
• Directed the development of a low-code AI workflow orchestrator powering the Kumbh Sah'Ayak chatbot, unveiled by the Prime Minister of India.
• Architected and delivered Krishi SahAlyak, a multilingual AI assistant scaled to 25,000+ users and 1M+ monthly requests.
• Accelerated infrastructure procurement and compliance clearances by 35% through proactive coordination with government stakeholders and auditors.
• Optimized high-volume AI workflows by benchmarking LLMs (GPT, Llama, Gemini) to balance inference costs with output accuracy.
• Defined and executed comprehensive product roadmaps in collaboration with government partners to prioritize mission-critical features.

CTO at Default (2019-10 – 2024-07)

Scaled a 20-person engineering organization to deliver high-performance, resilient applications and enterprise-grade SDKs.

• Scaled a 20-person engineering organization to deliver high-performance, resilient applications and enterprise-grade SDKs.
• Engineered an offline-capable Android POS invoicing app using proprietary payload-minimization, facilitating millions of transactions in low-network environments.
• Slashed project setup times from days to hours by architecting standardized React and React Native starter kits with pre-built modules.
• Architected a highly scalable ticket-booking SDK for a European airline, successfully processing 1M+ daily requests during peak traffic.
• Developed a search and recommendation engine using AWS Personalize and ElasticSearch, enabling personalized curation across 1,000+ SKUs.
• Boosted engineering velocity by 30% by integrating Generative AI tools (GitHub Copilot, ChatGPT) into daily development and unit testing.
• Accelerated time-to-production by 20% through rigorous Git/PR workflows, strict review SLAs, and standardized branching guidelines.
• Designed technology-specific competency matrices, ensuring measurable quarter-over-quarter growth for the engineering team.

Principal Engineer at Bowstring Studio (2013-03 – 2019-09)

Spearheaded technical strategy and mobile delivery while mentoring high-performing cross-functional teams.

• Spearheaded technical strategy and mobile delivery while mentoring high-performing cross-functional teams.
• Launched 50+ mobile applications from scratch by mastering Android, iOS, and Node.JS, driving rapid market entry via optimized deployments.
• Engineered a custom mobile SDK using Bluetooth beacon handshakes to secure passenger tracking, increasing connection reliability to ~90%.
• Directed a 12-member team to launch an offline-first agri-tech MVP with KYC and payment integrations in just 5 months.
• Built the Uber Guru training app for driver onboarding, successfully doubling (2x) the platform's activation capacity.
• Reduced post-integration code changes by 40% by instituting a standardized API handshake process for REST API design and mocking.

B. Eng. in Software & Communications Engineering – Newcastle University (2009 – 2011)

B. Tech. in Computer Science Engineering – JIIT, Noida (2008 – 2009)