About Me

Engineering Leader. 25+ years building at scale.

I build technology companies, result-driven engineering cultures, and scalable secure platforms that deliver real business outcomes. Over a 25-year career I have led global teams across Asia, the UK, Europe and the US — spanning E-Commerce, Retail, Gaming, Creator Economy, Payments, and Generative AI — at everything from seed-stage startups to organisations handling hundreds of millions of daily active users.

Key Accomplishments

  • Built an AI platform supporting 20K creators & brands on TikTok, Instagram & YouTube — led CreatorOS to secure million-dollar funding.
  • Supported 56K requests/sec for Tesco.com core APIs and 40K+ tills across 6K stores in the UK & Europe.
  • Saved £700M in retail promotions at Tesco using ML-based forecasting.
  • Built Snapdeal's platform to 43M daily active users and 200K sellers — second-largest marketplace in India (2016).
  • Set up GLU's Hyderabad Centre serving 8M DAU, contributing to a share price rise from $2.21 to $7.1.
  • Delivered a NoSQL analytics platform for EA Sports scaling to 19M DAU, saving $4.08M in 2011–12.
  • Launched Windows Phone Tools Express in 14 months at Microsoft IDC, boosting mobile dev adoption by 12%.
  • Enabled multi-language & multi-currency for PartyGaming — became the #1 poker room globally at $3.1M/day.

Experience

DRPCRD / CreatorOSUK
Sep 2024 – Present

CTO & Co-Founder

Built CreatorOS from zero — a production-grade, AI-first creator commerce and intelligence platform spanning AWS, GCP, and Vercel. Delivered real-time semantic creator search and AI-driven brand–creator matching using vector embeddings. Built deep learning models for pricing and campaign performance prediction. Deployed LLM-powered workflows that generate missions, automate briefs, and forecast performance end-to-end. Productised AI with production MLOps, cost governance, observability, and human-in-the-loop controls.

NatterUK
Jan 2023 – Sep 2024

CTO

Built an advanced social network platform for well-being using FastAPI, Python, React Native, and Elasticsearch, with AI-driven sentiment analysis and audio/video ad classification. Constructed scalable and secure deployments with Docker and Terraform while integrating AI-enabled data models for content moderation.

TescoUK
Mar 2017 – Jun 2023

Head of Software Development

Established technology centres in Hungary and Poland, overseeing 250+ engineers across India, the UK, and Europe. Integrated a promotion system into Tesco's largest loyalty programme, saving £700 million via deep learning and data science. Managed technology operations for the Enterprise Platform, Supplier & Product Lifecycle, Promotions, and Deals — migrating everything from legacy mainframe systems to an open-source stack on Azure.

SnapdealIndia
Nov 2014 – Apr 2016

Vice President Engineering

Led engineering at Snapdeal Bangalore covering user-generated content, seller ecosystem, mobile apps, predictive analytics, recommendation systems, and API gateway. Established the Bangalore Innovation Centre from scratch — assembled a team of 100 in 100 days, growing to 224 by January 2016. Platform supported 43 million daily active users and 200K sellers, making Snapdeal the second-largest marketplace in India.

EA SportsIndia / UK
Jun 2011 – Nov 2014

Senior Technology Director

Spearheaded Big Data Analytics replacing kontagent/upsite with significant monthly savings. Implemented iOS/Android push notification systems replacing Urban Airship. Provided technical leadership for EA's flagship social game "Sims Socials" on Facebook and replaced Teradata with an open-source stack. Built the Hyderabad GAAS team delivering a cloud-hosted game server supporting 8 million DAU in 4 months.

Microsoft IDC ResearchIndia
Apr 2008 – Jun 2011

Senior Program Manager

Contributed to Windows Phone tools using .NETCF and Silverlight runtime. Worked with marketing teams on feature scoping, prioritisation, estimation, delivery, and rollout strategies. Launched Windows Phone Tools Express in 14 months, increasing mobile app development adoption by 12%.

Ivy Comptech (PartyGaming)India / Gibraltar
May 2006 – Apr 2008

Technical Lead

Managed the Party Poker game division with teams across Canada, UK, and Gibraltar. Launched no-download Poker in 3 months, a multilingual client in 4 months, and multi-currency support in 2 months — making it the #1 poker room globally at $3.1M revenue per day.

MotorolaIndia
Nov 2000 – May 2006

Software Developer

Individual contributor on mobile application features and Java backend APIs using MySQL. Implemented high availability through parallel rolling upgrades and built a Java/RMI distributed rules engine for SNMP-based message conversions between Network Station and cable modems.

Technology

Languages
PythonTypeScriptRustJava
AI / ML
LangChainMCPVertex AIRAG PipelinesMulti-Agent ArchitecturesOpenAI & Gemini APIsFine-TuningHugging FacePyTorchNumpyPandasScipy
Backend & APIs
FastAPIMicronautNode.jsNext.jsReactReact Native
Data Stores
PostgresCouchbaseElasticsearchRedis
Cloud & Infra
GCPAWSAzureVercelDockerKubernetesIstioLinux
Observability
KafkaSplunkNew RelicGrafanaPosthog
Integrations
StripePandaDocHubSpotTwilioWhatsAppTikTokInstagramResend

Education

B.Tech in Computer ScienceBIET India
MS in Software SystemsBITS Pilani
MBA in StrategyIndian Institute of Management

Papers Published

  • Design Patterns for Small Devices
  • Dual Funnel Model for Agile

Languages

  • English
  • Hindi
  • Sanskrit

Let's work together

I'm selective about what I take on, but genuinely enjoy helping companies navigate hard technical and organisational challenges. Whether you're a founder trying to scale your platform, an executive looking for an experienced technical voice, or a team that needs a hands-on CTO to drive delivery — I'd be happy to have a conversation.

Fractional CTO

Embedded technical leadership for growth-stage companies that need senior guidance without a full-time hire.

Advisory

Strategic input on architecture, AI/ML adoption, team structure, and roadmap prioritisation — on a retainer or project basis.

Consulting

Deep-dive engagements on platform modernisation, cloud migration, data strategy, or building AI-first products from zero.

rishisharma.connect@gmail.comBased in Harpenden, UK · Available remotely worldwide