I take ownership of difficult technology, and stay close to the work.
I'm a hands-on AI and engineering leader with 18+ years of building production systems and companies. Most recently I was Principal AI Architect at Aveni, working on regulated banking AI. Before that I was Head of AI & Platform at Orangewood Labs, AI & ML Lead at Hike on ML systems serving more than 100M users, and a consultant to Nykaa's engineering team. I've founded six companies. Since April 2026 I've run Neul Labs.
I still write code daily — currently in Rust and Python — and believe the best engineering leaders stay close to the work. My open source projects, research papers, and production systems reflect a consistent philosophy: build it, ship it, measure the outcome.
Core Expertise
AI-Native Development
- Production AI-assisted development frameworks
- AI agent architecture and safety patterns (Substrate Pattern)
- AI governance for regulated industries
- LLM integration and prompt engineering at scale
See the published frameworks for AI agent safety, governance, and AI-assisted development.
Systems Architecture
- E-commerce platforms at massive scale (99.99% uptime)
- Real-time data systems (Kafka, Flink, event-driven)
- High-performance APIs and microservices
- Edge computing and industrial IoT
Engineering Leadership
- Scaling teams from 5 to 50+ engineers
- Technical hiring and culture building
- Cross-functional AI team formation
- Remote-first engineering organizations
Startup Advisory
- Fundraising support and pitch development
- Product-market fit and go-to-market strategy
- Technical due diligence for VCs
- Architecture scaling from MVP to enterprise
Career Journey
Company-by-company detail, including one FAQ answer per role: /experience/.
Founder, Principal
2024 – PresentNeul Labs
High-performance AI agent infrastructure. Rust-accelerated drop-ins (fast-litellm, fast-langgraph)
Principal AI Architect
May 2025 – Mar 2026Aveni
Architected the internal AI platform for enterprise banking deployments; built Agent Assure with evaluation, versioning and release controls
AI Engineering Lead
Dec 2023 – Nov 2024Manufactured
Built AI agents for global supply chain optimization using GPT-4
Head of AI & Platform
Oct 2022 – Sep 2023Orangewood Labs
Created RobotGPT (approximately 10× faster robot programming), AutoInspect and the EdgeML platform
Founder
Dec 2021 – Sep 2022Cryptuon Research
Multi-chain API, MPC wallets. Secured $2.5M+ pre-launch
Principal Engineering Consultant
2017 – 2021Nykaa
Social-commerce and AdTech products associated with ~$10M in business value; guided 15+ engineers
ML Team Leader
2019 – 2021Hike
30+ patents filed, shipped facial recognition and social matching
Senior Engineering Manager
2012 – 2013Tradus
Led 15-engineer team to launch India's first e-commerce marketplace
Core Team
2007 – 2008SlideShare
Led conversion engine architecture (acquired by LinkedIn)
Credentials
Education
- M.S. Computer Science (Cybersecurity), Arizona State University
- B.Tech Computer Science, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi
Recognition
- 90+ provisional patent filings (60+ at Hike, 30+ at Orangewood Labs)
- Published researcher at ML conferences
- IEEE Eta Kappa Nu member
- Google Summer of Code alumnus (2005, 2006)
- Author: Nginx Web Server Implementation Cookbook
Frequently asked
Who is Dipankar Sarkar?
Dipankar Sarkar is an engineering leader, AI/ML builder, and writer. IIT Delhi (B.Tech Computer Science) and Arizona State University (M.S. Computer Science, Cybersecurity) alumnus. Founder of Neul Labs, building high-performance AI agent infrastructure. Author of the Nginx Web Server Implementation Cookbook (Packt, 2011). Built engineering systems at Hike, Nykaa, Orangewood Labs, and Aveni. Not to be confused with the Indian film critic or cricketer of the same name.
What does Dipankar Sarkar do?
I build production AI agent systems and engineering platforms. I am currently the founder of Neul Labs, where I build Rust-accelerated drop-in components for AI stacks. Recent roles include Principal AI Architect at Aveni (May 2025 – Mar 2026), AI Lead at Manufactured, Head of AI & Platform at Orangewood Labs, AI & ML Lead at Hike, and Principal Engineering Consultant at Nykaa.
Where can I find my research and patents?
On dipankar.cc — my researcher persona site. It indexes 25+ provisional patent applications filed with the Indian Patent Office, peer-reviewed publications including the Fed-Focal Loss paper, and ongoing work on federated learning, MEV mitigation, and DePIN protocols.
Where can I find my startup case studies?
On dipankar.org, which covers board and executive AI advisory, workshops and speaking. It also covers ventures I have founded (Kwippy, ExpressMOJO, Octo.ai, Boom Labs), startups I have angel-invested in, and frameworks for fundraising and technical due diligence.
Where can I find my consulting and client work?
On dipankar.co, which covers contract AI engineering, AI enablement and delivery. It hosts case studies from client engagements including Lenskart, 99Acres, Momspresso, Quiki, and Blackbuck, focused on infrastructure transformation and data platform work.
Where do I blog?
On desinerd.com — my personal blog since 2007, covering AI, self-hosted infrastructure, DevOps, and personal projects. The site predates my persona-specific properties and is my oldest continuous online presence.
How do I get in touch?
Email me at contact@dipankar.name. I am also on LinkedIn (linkedin.com/in/dipankarsarkar), GitHub (github.com/dipankar for Rust CLI tools, github.com/sarkar-dipankar for research code), and Twitter/X (@dipankarsarkar).
Other places I write
I maintain a few separate sites, each focused on a different facet of my work. They share an author but not a topic. See /about/identities/ for the long version.
Board and executive AI advisory, executive workshops and institutional programmes, plus venture case studies (Kwippy, Boom Labs, ExpressMOJO, AAHIT) and notes on founding, fundraising, and advisory work.
Commissioned validation studies, federated learning, blockchain protocols, MEV mitigation, and the 25+ provisional patent applications filed with the Indian Patent Office.
Contract AI engineering, AI enablement programmes and delivery. Client case studies: infrastructure transformation, data platforms, recommendation systems for Lenskart, 99Acres, Momspresso, and others.
Long-running technical blog — AI agents, self-hosting, DevOps, and whatever else has caught my interest over the last 18 years.
Biography last reviewed 7 October 2026. Based in St Andrews, Scotland.