Shivam Ahuja

Engineering Manager with 9+ years in software engineering who leads teams and stays hands-on in the code. Most recently led an 8-member platform engineering pod at Simpplr (6 engineers, 2 QA), owning delivery, hiring, mentoring, and technical direction in partnership with Product, and building platform services including a tenant onboarding platform supporting 500+ tenants. Previously built a startup engineering team from scratch to nine people as co-founder and CTO. PGDM from IIM Rohtak.

Senior Software Engineer & Pod Lead at Simpplr (2022-08 – 2026-09)

• Led an 8-member engineering pod (6 engineers, 2 QA) within the Platform team, owning technical direction, sprint planning, team-level prioritization, delivery, and release execution, while staying hands-on in architecture, coding, and code reviews.
• Improved sprint delivery predictability by introducing task end-date tracking, stand-up-based delivery monitoring, and post-sprint retrospectives, raising the pod's say-do ratio from ~80% to 95%+.
• Developed engineers through monthly 1:1s, mentoring, goal setting, and performance feedback, resulting in two mentees progressing to key promotions.
• Addressed performance and expectation gaps through direct, example-based conversations, clear standards, and pairing with senior engineers.
• Maintained zero voluntary attrition across the team.
• Conducted 30+ engineering interviews during a company-wide, two-month hiring drive, and hired 2 engineers for the pod.
• Built a tenant sandbox feature with Node.js, Kubernetes jobs, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, and Redis that let customers clone a full or partial copy of their tenant into a lower environment for testing. 10 customers paid for the full-copy option within a month of launch, and sales used it to cut demo tenant setup time by at least a day.
• Led the architecture and build of a scalable tenant onboarding platform in Node.js from the ground up, establishing a standardized foundation supporting 500+ tenants.
• Designed and built a centralized file service with Node.js, PostgreSQL, S3, Lambda@Edge, and a CDN, adopted by 5 engineering teams, creating a reusable platform capability and scalable foundation for file management.
• Led the platform-side work to unbundle a combined intranet and add-ons offering into independently licensable products, removing add-ons' hard dependency on the core intranet, separating shared configuration, and enabling independent licensing per add-on, laying the groundwork for add-ons to be sold as standalone products and unblocking 6 downstream add-on teams.
• Partnered with engineering leadership and Product on quarterly roadmaps, estimation, and technical execution planning, driving team-level prioritization and stakeholder alignment, and regularly represented the pod in executive stakeholder discussions and product demos.
• Led adoption of AI-assisted engineering workflows using MCP, Cursor, and Claude Code across the team, and use them daily in development, helping engineers improve debugging, code exploration, and development productivity.

Senior Technical Associate at Policybazaar (2021-02 – 2022-08)

• Led delivery of core product modules including the Communication Engine and Renewal/Retention platforms, from initiation to successful production deployment.
• Led development of backend capabilities integrating multiple insurance providers, reducing manual operational effort and improving overall process efficiency.
• Built the UAE credit-score backend service from the ground up, owning development end-to-end from technical design through production deployment.
• Partnered with business and operations teams to build automated reporting capabilities and translate complex operational workflows into technical solutions.
• Replaced a paid image-optimization service with an open-source alternative, eliminating recurring vendor licensing costs while maintaining image delivery performance.
• Optimized high-throughput legacy APIs by introducing caching, query indexing, and eliminating redundant calls, improving response times and system reliability under peak load.

Co-Founder & Chief Technology Officer at Perspectico Learning (2019-11 – 2021-01)

• Co-founded the venture and served as Product & Technology Lead, building a team of designers and engineers from the ground up to 9 members, owning technical architecture and product strategy, and contributing to development.
• Led system architecture and launch of three flagship SaaS products, evolving the company from an early career-guidance platform into a multi-stakeholder placement ecosystem: Perspectico ATS (serving candidates, colleges, and recruiters), Suitable AI, and Suitable Online Testing.
• Partnered with investors and business stakeholders on product vision and roadmap, contributing to wireframing, feature ideation, and competitive and feasibility analysis for new product lines.
• Architected the assessment engine within Suitable Online Testing as a standalone, reusable module, sold independently (used by the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) to administer exams and issue 700+ certificates) while also powering assessments inside the ATS product, creating an additional revenue stream.
• Identified a major onboarding drop-off in the ATS product through database analysis and redesigned registration into a lightweight signup (granting immediate platform access) followed by a deeper profile step required only at job application, reducing early drop-off and improving onboarding completion.
• Established engineering best practices around Agile/Scrum, code reviews, quality assurance, and continuous delivery while mentoring engineering talent.
• Set up and integrated third-party services including SendGrid, Razorpay, Google Workspace APIs, and Google Analytics.

Senior Software Engineer (Full-Stack) at Codalien Technologies (2017-08 – 2019-10)

• Promoted through technical ranks to Senior Full-Stack Engineer, leading production-grade web and mobile projects for enterprise clients including Credbo, PVR, BMW, Uber, and Evermee.
• Designed and developed high-performance web applications using modern JavaScript frameworks and scalable backend architectures.
• Engaged directly with global enterprise clients to scope technical requirements, resolve critical production bottlenecks, and deliver architecture improvements.
• Architected client applications, integrated complex API systems, and managed CI/CD deployment pipelines on AWS.

Post Graduate Diploma in Management (PGDM) – IIM Rohtak (2023 – 2024)

B.Tech in Computer Science – Technological Institute of Textile and Sciences (2013 – 2017)