Gopalakrishna Hegde

Staff Engineer | Technical Architect | AI-Powered Systems Builder

Building production systems from infrastructure to user experience. Deep expertise in full-stack development, system architecture, and AI integration. 9+ years shipping high-performance SaaS products.

✉ gplhegde@gmail.com ↗ gplhegde.com ↗ github.com/gplhegde ↗ linkedin.com/in/gplhegde

Technical Profile

What I Do Best

I design and build complex systems end-to-end. My sweet spot is taking ambitious technical problems - AI-powered applications, high-performance infrastructure, distributed systems - and turning them into production-grade solutions. I've architected systems serving 3000+ businesses across 40+ countries, built private data centers from scratch, and shipped AI products that handle real user workloads at scale.

Current Technical Focus

AI-Native Development: Building production systems with AI agents (MCP protocol, Google ADK). Extensive daily use of AI coding tools (Claude Code, Gemini CLI) to amplify productivity while maintaining technical rigor and code quality.
System Architecture: Designing distributed systems that balance performance, cost, and maintainability. Experience with both cloud and bare-metal infrastructure.
Full-Stack Shipping: Personally implementing features across the entire stack - from database optimization to real-time WebSocket communications to browser extensions.

Core Technical Expertise

Languages & Frameworks

Primary: Python (Django), TypeScript (Vue.js, React), JavaScript (Node.js)
Databases: PostgreSQL (advanced query optimization), ClickHouse (analytics at scale)
Real-time: WebSockets, Server-Sent Events

Infrastructure & Systems

Architecture: Distributed systems, microservices, event-driven architectures
Infrastructure: Bare-metal data center management, nginx
Performance: System optimization, caching strategies (Redis, Memcached)
Reliability: High-availability systems, monitoring, incident response

AI & Machine Learning

LLM Integration: Building AI-powered applications, prompt engineering, RAG systems
AI Agents: MCP protocol implementation, multi-agent systems, Google ADK
Computer Vision: TensorFlow, edge AI, optimization for resource-constrained devices

Modern Development

AI-Augmented: Daily use of Claude Code, Gemini CLI, Cursor
Browser Extensions: Chrome extension development
DevOps: CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, deployment automation
API Design: RESTful APIs, webhook systems

Professional Experience

CTO & Co-founder | Konigle Pte Ltd

May 2019 - Present | Singapore

Technical founder role - hands-on development of AI-powered SaaS products from concept to production. Daily coding, architecture decisions, and system implementation.

AI Website Builder & Hosting Platform (2024 onwards)

Architected and implemented complete AI-powered website builder using MCP (Model Context Protocol) and Google ADK for agentic website generation.
System handles real-time chat, AI agent coordination, visual editing, and hosting, powering 3000+ B2B websites across 40+ countries.
Developed complete email-to-website workflow allowing users to generate and edit websites via email parsing and intent recognition.
Shipped multiple Chrome extensions as acquisition channels with cross-site functionality and secure authentication.
Built high-performance website analytics service from scratch using ClickHouse for time-series data.
Maintained code quality through rigorous review while using Claude Code and Gemini CLI for a 3-5x productivity improvement.

E-Commerce SaaS Platform (2019-2024)

Architected and built full-stack SaaS platform scaling to 1000+ B2B customers across 70+ countries.
Personally developed ~90% of codebase including frontend (Vue.js), backend (Django), and infrastructure.
Achieved <3% 90-day churn through technical product excellence and robust error recovery mechanisms.

Private Infrastructure & Performance Engineering (2024-2025)

Designed and built private data center infrastructure from scratch (bare-metal, nginx, object storage).
Achieved 13x performance improvement and 2.3x cost reduction vs. cloud alternatives.
Optimized database queries reducing p99 latency from 2s to <100ms.

Co-founder & CTO | AIMLedge Pte Ltd

Jan 2018 - May 2019 | Singapore

Deep tech startup focused on edge AI. Successfully raised pre-seed funding from Entrepreneur First.

Developed and optimized deep learning algorithms for resource-constrained devices (CCTV cameras, NVRs).
Created novel optimization techniques (model quantization, OpenCL kernels) enabling real-time inference with 10x speedup.
Built end-to-end IoT system connecting edge devices to cloud infrastructure with real-time video streaming.

R&D Engineer | Panasonic R&D Center

Jan 2017 - Dec 2017 | Singapore

Developed computer vision algorithms for production consumer electronics.
Optimized models for real-time performance on embedded systems.
Mentored junior engineers and established best practices for model deployment.

Research Associate | Nanyang Technological University

Oct 2015 - Dec 2016 | Singapore

Published award-winning research on efficient deep learning algorithms for edge deployment.
Developed open-source libraries (CaffePresso) for neural network optimization.

Selected Technical Projects

AI Website Builder (2024-2025)

Problem: Building websites requires technical skills and time. Existing builders are template-based and rigid.
Solution: Conversational AI system that generates custom, production-ready websites from natural language.

Scale: 3000+ active websites, handling real business traffic across 40+ countries.

Tech: Python (Django), TypeScript (Vue.js), PostgreSQL, WebSockets, Google ADK, MCP

High-Performance Private Infrastructure (2024)

Problem: Cloud costs scaling linearly with growth. Performance limitations on shared infrastructure.
Solution: Custom bare-metal data center optimized for specific workload patterns with direct nginx load balancing.

Results: 13x performance improvement, 2.3x cost reduction, 99.9%+ uptime.

Tech: Bare-metal servers, nginx, PostgreSQL, Redis, Prometheus, Grafana

E-Commerce Pricing & Promotions Platform (2019-2024)

Problem: Shopify merchants need advanced pricing automation lacking in the native platform.
Solution: Real-time promotion engine handling time-sensitive price changes synchronized with Shopify's API.

Scale: 1000+ B2B customers across 70+ countries.

Tech: Python (Django), PostgreSQL, Redis, Celery, Vue.js

Education

M.S. Computer Science & Engineering

2014 - 2015

Nanyang Technological University, Singapore | GPA: 4.88/5.0

Focus: Machine Learning, Computer Vision, High-Performance Computing

B.E. Electronics & Communication Engineering

2008 - 2012

PES University, Bangalore, India | GPA: 9.24/10.0

Focus: Signal Processing, Embedded Systems

Publications & Research

View all publications →

CaffePresso: Accelerating Convolutional Networks on Embedded SoCs — ACM Transactions on Embedded Computing Systems (TECS), 2017
CaffePresso: An Optimized Library for Deep Learning on Embedded Accelerator-based Platforms — ESWEEK (CASES), 2016
Evaluating Embedded FPGA Accelerators for Deep Learning Applications — IEEE FCCM, 2016
Energy-Efficient Acceleration of OpenCV Saliency Computation Using Soft Vector Processors — IEEE FCCM, 2015
Technical blog posts on system architecture and AI engineering (gplhegde.com)