Sanat Dhir
Engineering Leader. AI Transformation. Columbia MBA.
I help engineering organizations adopt AI as a production capability — with structure, governance, and measurable ROI.
About
I've spent 20+ years building and leading engineering teams across financial services, fintech, and AI. Most recently, I led platform engineering at an AI-native insurtech startup — standing up a 25-person organization across 4 teams that shipped production RAG systems and multi-agent pipelines.
Before that, I scaled engineering at Acorns (5M+ subscribers), built ETF platform infrastructure at JPMorgan Chase, and modernized FX trading systems at Citigroup. I'm currently finishing my Executive MBA at Columbia Business School (May 2026) and building PayFence — an API monetization platform for the agent economy.
I operate at the intersection of deep technical work and organizational design. I don't just build systems — I build the teams and operating models that sustain them.
Technical Depth
- RAG & eval harnesses
- Multi-agent systems
- LLM orchestration
- Platform architecture
Organizational Systems
- Built platform eng from scratch
- 4 teams, 25-person org
- Operating models & governance
- Hiring & team scaling
Business Alignment
- Columbia Executive MBA
- Multi-$M budget ownership
- FinOps & vendor optimization
- M&A due diligence
Experience
Founder
PayFence2025 – Present
API monetization platform for the agent economy. Built end-to-end; IP currently in transfer.
Head of Platform Engineering
AI Claims Platform2024 – 2025
Built a 25-person platform engineering organization across 4 teams. Delivered production RAG systems and multi-agent pipelines.
Senior Engineering Manager
Acorns2022 – 2023
Scaled engineering team from 8 to 22+ engineers serving 5M+ subscribers.
VP, Senior Engineering Manager
JPMorgan Chase2017 – 2022
Led ETF platform engineering — 200+ ETFs across 3 global regions.
Staff Software Engineer
Citigroup2014 – 2017
FX platform modernization and trading systems.
Various Engineering Roles
JPMorgan, ICAP, NYT, McKesson1998 – 2014
Early career across financial services, media, and healthcare technology.
Education
Columbia Business School
Executive MBA · 2026
University of Lucknow
B.S. Computer Science · 2000
Work
Writing
Thinking publicly about AI transformation, engineering leadership, and the future of work.