Vat Raghavan

Vat Raghavan

Engineering Team Lead & Backend Systems Expert

20+ years building and leading backend systems across fintech, AI & media, healthcare IoT, energy, defense, and gaming. Former CTO. Polyglot engineer fluent in 8+ languages who picks up new stacks fast when it counts.

Download Resume Get in Touch

About

I'm an engineering leader with over two decades of experience spanning the full stack — with my deepest roots in backend architecture, REST API design, database performance, and DevOps infrastructure. I've worked at every scale: as an individual contributor building systems from scratch, as a team lead managing eight engineers across timezones, and as a CTO taking a product from zero to production.

My career spans an unusually wide range of industries — fintech at Bloomberg and E*Trade, social payments at Tilt (5M+ users), healthcare IoT at NimaSensor, AI & media automation at UpResTech, energy sector voice platforms, defense simulation, and gaming. That breadth means I adapt quickly: I've consistently been handed new domains and new stacks and delivered.

I'm a polyglot engineer. I've shipped production code in TypeScript, Python, Go, Perl, Java, C/C++, and Erlang. When a role needs me to pick up a new language or framework fast, that's not a risk — it's something I've done repeatedly throughout my career and genuinely enjoy.

I lead by staying close to the work. I do architecture and code reviews, mentor engineers, collaborate with stakeholders to scope and estimate, and I still write code. The best engineering leaders stay technical — I believe that and try to live it.

Technical Skills

Backend & API

Node.js REST API Design Express JSON Schema Swagger / OpenAPI Microservices

Databases & Data

PostgreSQL MongoDB MySQL Kafka Query Optimization Schema Design

DevOps & Infrastructure

AWS GCP Docker Kubernetes CI/CD GitHub Actions Jenkins Travis CI

Languages

TypeScript JavaScript Python Golang C / C++ Erlang Perl Java

Leadership & Process

Team Lead (8 engineers) Remote Team Management Architecture & Design Code Review Agile / Kanban / Scrum Stakeholder Management

AI & Automation

ElevenLabs D-ID Midjourney YouTube Data API After Effects Scripting Video Upscaling Pipelines

Career Highlights

20+
Years of professional software engineering
5M+
User accounts migrated with zero downtime at Tilt
1000%+
Throughput improvement on Tilt's notifications layer
8
Engineers led as Technical Team Lead at Tilt
8+
Production programming languages shipped
CTO
Built izi.ai SaaS from zero to production as co-founder

Work Experience

Founding Engineer Oct 2022 – Aug 2024
UpResTech  ·  Remote
AI-driven media automation and content production tooling.
  • Built automated YouTube video upload and claims management tools via YouTube Data API.
  • Designed and implemented an AI-based video upscaling toolchain end-to-end.
  • Owned DevOps, growth engineering, and infrastructure tasks across the stack.
  • Trained staff on tooling and internal systems.
TypeScript Node.js Python YouTube Data API ElevenLabs D-ID Midjourney After Effects Scripting Adobe Premiere
Independent Consulting 2020 – 2022
Various Clients  ·  Remote
  • Delivered backend engineering and systems consulting for clients across sectors.
  • Designed and built an IVR platform for the energy sector integrating Twilio Studio, Autopilot, Salesforce, Stripe, and MySQL with real-time CI/CD via GitHub Actions.
Node.js Twilio SendGrid Salesforce MySQL GitHub Actions
CTO & Co-Founder 2016 – 2018
izi.ai  ·  San Mateo, CA
AI-based virtual assistant for team conference call collaboration and sharing.
  • Architected and built the full SaaS product from scratch; deployed to dozens of beta customers on AWS.
  • Led and managed international consultant teams (India, Romania) on backend features and React frontend.
  • Integrated Slack, Asana, Trello, JIRA, and Stripe into a proprietary REST API.
Node.js Express PostgreSQL AWS JSON Schema React Agile / Kanban
Lead Backend Engineer 2015 – 2016
NimaSensor (formerly 6SensorLabs)  ·  San Francisco, CA
iOS-first SaaS platform for a proprietary hardware gluten & peanut allergy sensor device.
  • Owned the full backend: database schema design, API contract definition, and Node.js implementation.
  • Collaborated directly with CEO, PM, Designer, and Mobile Engineer to iterate on product features.
  • Built features enabling customers to share and search sensor test results from restaurants nationwide.
Node.js Express PostgreSQL AWS Swagger Travis CI
Technical Team Lead — API 2013 – 2015
Tilt.com  ·  San Francisco, CA
Social payments platform allowing users to pool funds collaboratively.
  • Led and managed a team of eight remote engineers delivering API features consistently ahead of schedule.
  • Spearheaded full rewrite of the payments layer, seamlessly migrating 5M+ user accounts from Balanced Payments to Stripe Marketplaces with zero downtime.
  • Championed a performance rewrite of the notifications layer, achieving over 1000% throughput improvement.
  • Oversaw all API architecture, design, and code reviews across the team.
Perl / Dancer PostgreSQL AWS Jenkins JIRA Agile / Kanban

Earlier Career

  • E*Trade Financial 2012 – 2014
  • Bloomberg L.P. 2008 – 2011
  • Meggitt Training Systems 2007 – 2008
  • Scientific Games 2004 – 2007
  • CNM Networks 2003 – 2005

Industry Experience

Financial Technology
AI & Media Automation
Healthcare & IoT
Energy Sector
Defense & Simulation
Gaming
Telecommunications
Social Payments

Recommendations

[ Paste recommendation text from LinkedIn ]

Recommender Name
Title, Company

[ Paste recommendation text from LinkedIn ]

Recommender Name
Title, Company

[ Paste recommendation text from LinkedIn ]

Recommender Name
Title, Company

Get in Touch

vat.raghavan@gmail.com (917) 515-0564  ·  text preferred LinkedIn GitHub Resume PDF