Aashay Desai
AashayD@gmail.com
LinkedIn
Web: http://aashay.com
Experience
Product Manager, XR Tech (June 2021 - Present)
- Spearheaded 3rd-party engagement strategy for the launch of Presence Platform, a machine perception and AI platform that enables Unity and Unreal Engine developers to create more realistic Mixed Reality, interaction, and voice experiences for AR, VR, and MR. Successfully onboarded over 20 game studios and kickstarted the developer ecosystem flywheel. Created and communicated platform vision and strategy to ensure alignment and success
- Partnered with Developer Relations and DevRel Engineering to foster developer success on the Presence Platform through RFP initiatives and support efforts
- Worked closely with the PMM team to shape the go-to-market strategy and vision for the product through brainstorming, planning, and execution. Distilled complex topics such as OpenXR and synthesized product and API feedback for vertical product teams
- Led 10-person team of engineers, designers, and product marketing managers to ensure developer success on Meta's Commerce API across multiple commerce partners including Shopify, BigCommerce, and ChanelAdvisor
- Owned backend Commerce APIs as well as developer tooling such as developer dashboards and the canonical reference implementation
- Designed product roadmap based on developer pain points and much-needed API performance improvements
Partner Engineer, Commerce (May 2016 - May 2020)
- Technical partner to the largest e-commerce companies in the world, including Shopify, BigCommerce, and WooCommerce. Led platform integrations resulting in multi-billion dollar revenue
- Collaborated with internal product and engineering teams to build innovative products including Instagram Shopping's onsite checkout system
- Built zero-to-one partner integrations for Marketplace Autos from the ground up, including integrations with Cars.com, Kelley Blue Book, Edmunds, and Autotrader
Clever - San Francisco, CA: October 2014 to May 2016 (Developer Relations Manager/Partner Engineer)
- Technical liaison and thought partner to developer teams at the largest names in EdTech, such as Scholastic, Instructure, Amazon, and NWEA. Facilitated integrations on the Clever REST API + OAuth2-based platform and delivered amazing experiences to the K-12 classroom
- Collaborated with Account Management to lead technical onboarding, integration planning and review, and production support. Developed processes around integration quality, writing API documentation, maintenance of community-supported libraries, and technical support via ZenDesk
Cotap - San Francisco, CA: March 2014 to August 2014 (Senior Software Engineer)
- Designed cloud-based infrastructure on Amazon Web Services such as EC2, S3, and CloudFormation in a DevOps role. Integrated logging infrastructure for higher visibility across services
Inkling - San Francisco, CA: October 2011 to March 2014 (Web Operations Engineer)
- Built, maintained, and ensured reliability for services powering the cloud-based publishing environment, online reading experience, and internal tools
- Developed internal tools such as deployment dashboards, monitoring, and metrics-gathering systems to increase engineering productivity and platform visibility. Simplified automation using tools such as Jenkins CI and Puppet
- Scrum Master and Senior Quality Engineer on Force.com API and Salesforce Knowledge. Maintained test automation suites and QA processes on features such as REST API, Apex, Streaming API (CometD), and SOAP APIs
Junction Solutions - Lincolnshire, IL: June 2007 to October 2008 (Senior Consultant)
- Technical lead responsible for client consultation, project management, software design, QA, and support using customized Microsoft Dynamics AX Multi-Channel Retail ERP vertical
Education
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign: May 2007
Bachelor of Science - General Engineering
Concentration: Engineering Administration, Technology Commercialization