Koushik Dasika
Hacker · Builder · Engineering Leader
Engineering leader with 15+ years of experience building software, scaling infrastructure, and growing teams. Currently leading a team of 13 engineers at Automatiq, where we're building AI-powered features and shipping across marketplace, payments, and white-label ticketing products.
About
I've spent the last 15+ years building software and leading engineering teams across startups in NYC. I started in 2011 doing contract work in PHP, JavaScript, jQuery, and MySQL — and grew from there through full-stack roles into Staff, Principal, and eventually engineering leadership. I've never stopped writing code.
I'm at my best when I'm building high-performing teams, designing systems that scale, and solving hard infrastructure problems. I've migrated entire platforms to Kubernetes, built real-time inventory systems with Kafka and event sourcing, and helped teams ship faster by investing in tooling, CI/CD, and engineering culture.
I also love teaching. Earlier in my career, I tutored for years, led CS recitations at Rutgers, and even wrote my own 150-page calculus textbook. That instinct to share knowledge still shows up in how I lead — through mentorship, skillshares, and making sure everyone on the team is growing.
What I'm Focused On
At Automatiq, I lead engineering across three product areas — our B2B marketplace, Instant Sites (white-label ticketing storefronts), and Payments infrastructure. I'm currently driving our AI-powered feature roadmap, including semantic search, LLM-based catalog enrichment, and MCP server integrations.
Beyond shipping features, I focus on the fundamentals that make teams effective: infrastructure optimization (we cut AWS spend by 60% while scaling to 40%+ more traffic), hiring and onboarding great engineers, and building the processes that help everyone do their best work.
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