Engineering Manager · Razorpay · Bangalore

SUMIT
RAJ

13 years of building AI-powered systems that scale — from ML-driven risk engines in fintech to intelligent chatbots, algo trading systems, and location intelligence platforms. International author, mentor to 1000+ engineers, and trainer on AI & algo trading.

0→1 Builder x10 Scaler System Design AI / ML Systems Fintech Edtech Algo Trading LLMs & Chatbots International Author Mentor
Explore Courses ↓ View Experience sumit786raj@gmail.com
13+
Years Experience
1K+
Students Mentored
60+
Countries (Book)
300+
Algo Traders Trained
Sumit Raj
Sumit Kumar Raj
Career Timeline

Work Experience

Six roles across fintech, edtech, location intelligence, hospitality tech, real estate, and global SaaS.

2024
Razorpay Current
Engineering Manager
Jul 2024 – Present
  • Led two engineering pods — Recon and Recon SaaS — totalling 17 engineers
  • Took on a Sub-Group charter for Risk: leading Merchant & Transaction Risk and Post Payments Risk pods
  • Overseeing Shield — an ML-powered risk scoring service processing 17% of India's card transactions at <10ms latency, using real-time fraud detection models
  • Drove AI-assisted reconciliation workflows to reduce manual effort and exception rates in financial data pipelines
  • Worked with the UPI team to build a Credit on UPI proof-of-concept with NPCI, incorporating AI-based credit eligibility signals
  • Stabilised teams from high-velocity delivery to reliable KTLO mode while expanding AI/risk charters
2021
Unacademy
Engineering Manager
Feb 2021 – Jul 2024
  • Managed Unacademy Centres — the company's highest-revenue vertical
  • Led Growth & Payments team overseeing a payment system processing ₹500–600 Cr annually
  • Conceptualised, architected and launched an in-house AI-assisted CRM serving 5,000+ business executives — incorporating lead scoring and sales intelligence features
  • Integrated ML-driven growth signals to improve lead conversion rates and personalise learner journeys on the platform
  • Drove multiple refactoring & cost-optimisation projects while maintaining 100% uptime
  • End-to-end ownership of 0-to-1 product architecture including AI-enhanced analytics dashboards for business teams
2018
GeoSpark (Roam.ai)
Senior Architect
May 2018 – Feb 2021
  • Architected an ML-powered location intelligence platform handling 100+ TPS and TBs of data daily via Lambda, Kinesis, S3, Redshift & API Gateway
  • Built AI/ML pipelines to derive user behaviour patterns, movement insights, and predictive geofencing for enterprise clients
  • Designed real-time data-cleaning and anomaly-detection systems processing GBs of GPS and sensor data daily
  • Hired and led the youngest engineering team; scaled the AI platform to millions of location events/day
  • Technical POC for ML feature discussions with enterprise clients; contributed to AI-driven pricing models
2016
LodgIQ India Pvt. Ltd.
Principal Engineer
Feb 2016 – May 2018
  • Led Backend Platform development for an AI-driven revenue management & dynamic pricing system for the hospitality industry
  • Optimised ML pipelines and ETL workflows that powered real-time price predictions for 200+ hotels — improving forecast accuracy and revenue yield
  • Collaborated with the Data Science team on model performance tuning to accelerate ML algo runtime by significant margins
  • Reduced cloud costs by $10,000+/month via full-stack automation, stack migration to AWS, and open-source tooling
  • Managed and onboarded junior engineers and interns across India and the US on AI/ML system workflows
2015
CommonFloor.com
Software Development Engineer
Jul 2015 – Feb 2016
  • Developed AIRA — an AI-powered Real-Estate Voice Assistant built on Amazon Alexa Voice Service & Alexa Skill Kit; one of India's first voice AI products in real estate
  • Built a conversational AI chatbot to handle home-seeker queries — using NLP to understand intent, filter listings, and guide users through the buying journey
  • Built full-stack products with the CFx team from concept to production
  • Single-handedly engineered a Django-based group-buying webapp for real estate end-to-end
2013
Yodlee Infotech
Software Engineer
Jul 2013 – Jun 2015
  • Built and enhanced features on a financial data aggregation platform processing personal finance and account data for 50M+ customers and 700 global clients — early exposure to AI/ML applications in fintech data
  • Contributed to security, performance, and UI improvements on intelligent financial dashboards used by banks and fintechs worldwide
  • Core team member for Yodlee Hackathons — exploring AI and data-driven financial product ideas
  • Managed product support through Maintenance & Release cycles; developed strong instincts for data quality and reliability engineering
Tech Stack

Skills & Technologies

A decade-plus of hands-on engineering across the full backend stack.

Languages
Python JavaScript Java Golang
Databases
MySQL PostgreSQL MongoDB MariaDB ClickHouse
Caching & Search
Redis Memcache ElasticSearch Aerospike
Message Queues
Kafka RabbitMQ Kinesis SQS
Cloud & Infra
AWS GCP DigitalOcean Docker Kubernetes
Automation & Security
Terraform Ansible CloudFormation Akamai Cloudflare
AI / ML
LLMs NLP ML Pipelines Algo Trading Chatbots Predictive Analytics
Learn with Sumit

Courses, Books & Mentorship

13 years of hard-won knowledge — packaged to accelerate your career.

⬡ Pre-recorded Course · Past Batch

Building Algo Trading
System with Python

Learn to build a fully automated algorithmic trading system from scratch. This is a recording from a live past cohort — real Q&A, real walkthroughs, real edge cases included.

Pre-recorded from a live cohort — raw, unscripted, real
20 hours of free 1:1 support included post-purchase
Strategy design, backtesting & live trading in Python
Risk management & portfolio optimisation
No prior trading knowledge needed — just Python basics
Taught to 300+ students; continuously refined
₹9,999
One-time payment
Lifetime access
View Full Course Page →
BUILDING
CHATBOTS
WITH
PYTHON
Apress · New York
Building Chatbots
with Python
Published internationally · 60+ countries

A practical, code-first guide to building intelligent conversational bots with Python. Used by developers and students across 60+ countries and published in four languages.

🇬🇧 English 🇧🇷 Portuguese 🇰🇷 Korean 🇨🇳 Chinese
Get the Book →
1:1 Sessions
Personal Mentorship
1,000+ engineers mentored over the past decade. Book a private session tailored to you.
🧭
Career Mentoring
Navigate promotions, pivots, and transitions in tech
💻
Learn Programming
Structured 1:1 sessions — Python, backend, system design
🎯
Mock Interviews
Real interview simulations with detailed written feedback
🚀
Career Tips & Resume Review
Job hunting strategy, compensation negotiation, and profile review
Book a Session →
Beyond the Code

Community & Achievements

Speaking, competing, writing, and giving back to the developer community.

🏆
Hackathon Circuit
Won and participated in hackathons at eBay, InMobi, Sequoia, Knowlarity, Microsoft, Yodlee, Instamojo, and Grab.
🎤
Speaker & Trainer
Guest Speaker at IISc Bangalore. Trainer at PyLadies meetups. Faculty training via IQuest, Mysore.
📖
International Author
"Building Chatbots with Python" — published by Apress, New York. Available in 4 languages across 60+ countries.
👨‍🏫
1,000+ Mentored
Over a decade of mentoring engineers on backend architecture, system design, and career growth.
📊
Algo Trading Trainer
Trained 300+ students to build automated trading systems with Python — from strategy design to live deployment.
🌏
Global Reach
Book readers and course students in 60+ countries. Speaks English, Hindi, and basic Kannada.
Academics

Education

Bachelor of Engineering — Information Science
Dayananda Sagar College of Engineering, VTU · Bangalore
Graduated with 74%
2013
"Certifications? Never believed in them. I believe in shipping real products."