Engineering leadership · Enterprise platforms · Applied AI

Praveen Ravindran Pillai

I lead engineering teams and stay close to the architecture, code and decisions that bring complex software into production.

Vice President, Product & Engineering at Founding Minds Software. Based in Oslo, with 17+ years of experience in software delivery.

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Selected Work

A selection of my work at Founding Minds, combining technical direction, hands-on engineering and delivery leadership.

Platform evolution

Evolving financial software

My work includes helping financial software evolve as business needs change, with a focus on maintainable architecture, thoughtful integrations and reliable delivery.

My role: Guide architecture and integration decisions, plan incremental improvements, and bring business and engineering perspectives together.

Architecture · Integration · Delivery

Production AI

Knowledge systems grounded in source evidence

I built production retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) systems end to end: ingestion, chunking, retrieval and reranking, with source grounding and feedback loops to improve answer quality.

Engineering decisions: Combine LLM-assisted extraction and mapping with deterministic validation, confidence checks and human approval before downstream execution.

Production systems · Hands-on architecture and implementation

Enterprise AI integration

Connecting agents to business tools with clear controls

I designed and built multi-agent workflows and a custom Model Context Protocol (MCP) server and client, giving agents a governed interface to enterprise tools and data.

My role: Own evaluation and guardrails, establish team review standards, and work with Legal and Compliance on permitted AI use and client agreements. I also review technical feasibility and economics, including model usage and costs.

Agent workflows · Governance and operational ownership

Leadership & Experience

My career has grown from hands-on development into technical leadership, engineering management and product responsibility.

  1. Vice President, Product & Engineering

    Founding Minds Software · Apr 2023–present

    Lead technical direction and AI adoption, review client proposals, and own IT budgets and vendor negotiations alongside architecture and engineering work.

  2. Director of Software Engineering

    Founding Minds Software · Mar 2022–Mar 2023

    Designed and scaled financial product modules, set enterprise architecture roadmaps, and led cross-functional delivery while remaining hands-on in architecture and code review.

  3. Software Development Manager

    Founding Minds Software · Aug 2019–May 2022

    Coordinated 15+ people delivering user management, identity federation and compliance workflows. Defined technical requirements, managed dependencies and supported reliable releases.

  4. Technical Lead

    Founding Minds Software · Aug 2013–Aug 2019

    Built enterprise applications, APIs, integrations and reporting systems, with ownership of backend services, databases, code review and production troubleshooting.

Earlier roles (2009–2013): Project Leader at TECRITI Consulting, Software Developer at netbios technologies, and Web Programmer at Chirayil Infoteckh.

Technical Depth

AI systems
Azure OpenAI, RAG, retrieval and reranking, multi-agent workflows, LangGraph, MCP, agent evaluation and human oversight.
Platforms & delivery
Python, FastAPI, TypeScript, Node.js, REST APIs, Azure, AWS, Docker, Kubernetes, CI/CD and production monitoring.
Data architecture
PostgreSQL, Redis, Snowflake, Databricks and vector search.

My education includes an MBA in Business Analytics and an MA in International Relations, Strategy & Security. I completed Innovation with Large Language Models at NTNU in 2025.

Personal Projects

Independent projects where I explore creative play, interaction design and practical tools.

Interactive 3D

Brixox

A browser-based 3D brick builder. Choose shapes and colours, place and stack bricks, and explore ideas through hands-on building.

Explore Brixox

More things I’ve built

Sharing What I Learn

I host Intelligent Insights, a podcast exploring AI, language models and their practical applications.

Listen on Spotify

Let’s Connect

I enjoy exchanging ideas about engineering leadership, enterprise software and practical applications of AI.

Message me on LinkedIn to share perspectives or continue the conversation.