AI Engineering · Jun 29, 2026
AI Agent Safety: The Substrate Pattern in Practice
How to implement the Substrate Pattern for AI agent safety in production. The layer below the model that decides what the agent is allowed to do.
Fractional CTO & Technology Consultant
I help companies build technology that scales.
Hands-on engineering leader with 18+ years building production systems. Fractional CTO for US/UK/EU/AUS/JPN startups, with recent engagements in Edinburgh (UK) and New York. India-based optional.
Trusted by teams at 99Acres, Lenskart, PropTiger, and more
18+
years building production systems
250M+
users served on platforms shipped
IPO
led Nykaa engineering to IPO
16+
companies advised as CTO / advisor
Fractional CTO
Strategic technology leadership on a part-time basis. Architecture decisions, team mentoring, and technical roadmap for startups and scaling companies.
Technical StrategyTeam LeadershipArchitecture
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Forward Deployment Engineering
Building AI-assisted systems that survive production. Mechanical constraints, invariant enforcement, and deployment patterns that let your team move fast without breaking things.
AI GuardrailsProduction SafetyDeployment Patterns
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Team Training & Transformation
Structured transformation from startup speed to production scale. Engineering culture, AI-native practices, and the skills that matter in an AI-assisted world.
Team ScalingAI AdoptionEngineering Culture
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Selected Work
Real-world impact
Infrastructure
Revolutionizing Digital Infrastructure for Leading Indian Websites
Comprehensive infrastructure transformation for major Indian platforms — migrating from monolithic to microservices with Kubernetes.
KubernetesCDNAuto-scaling
60% faster page loads
AI / ML
Building a Recommendation System for Lenskart's Eyewear Platform
Developed a Word2Vec-based recommendation engine powering personalized eyewear suggestions for millions of users.
Word2VecPythonML Pipeline
35% higher engagement
Data Engineering
Scalable Data Pipeline for Momspresso
Built real-time data ingestion and processing pipeline with Apache Kafka enabling content personalization at scale.
Apache KafkaSparkReal-time
10M+ content items processed
FinTech
Cloud Cost Optimization for a P2P Marketplace
Strategic cloud cost optimization reducing infrastructure spend while improving performance and reliability.
AWSCost AnalysisDevOps
40% cost reduction
Latest Articles
Insights & case studies
AI Engineering · Jun 29, 2026
AI Governance for Financial Services: The Tiered Governance Model
How to implement AI governance for banks, insurers, and asset managers. The 4-tier Tiered Governance Model aligned to NIST AI RMF, ISO/IEC 42001, and the EU AI Act.
AI Engineering · Jun 29, 2026
Federated Learning Implementation: A CTO's Guide
How to implement federated learning in production. Framework selection, data partitioning, privacy mechanisms, aggregation, and deployment. The consulting practice of the Fed-Focal Loss author.
AI Engineering · Jun 29, 2026
How to Take a Lovable Codebase to Production
A practical guide to taking an AI-generated codebase (Lovable, Bolt, v0, Cursor) to production. Code audit, Supabase RLS hardening, deployment, observability, and compliance.
AI Engineering · Jun 29, 2026
Rust for Production AI: Why and How
Why Rust is the right choice for production AI infrastructure. Performance, safety, and the ecosystem. A practical guide from the founder of Neul Labs.
AI Engineering · Jun 29, 2026
Supabase RLS Hardening: A Practical Guide
How to audit and harden Supabase Row Level Security policies. The most common security vulnerability in AI-generated apps, and the fix.
Deep Dives
Explore by topic
Fractional CTO
Strategic technology leadership for growing companies
Forward Deployment
AI-assisted systems built for production
Team Transformation
Scaling engineering teams and culture
Infrastructure
Scalable architecture and cloud optimization
Data Engineering
Pipelines, analytics, and real-time processing
E-commerce
Product discovery and recommendation systems
About
Building for the present, planning for the future
I'm Dipankar Sarkar, a technology consultant with over a decade of experience transforming businesses through technology. I specialize in helping organizations navigate their digital evolution — from infrastructure modernization and AI/ML implementation to building and leading high-performance engineering teams.
My approach combines deep technical expertise with strategic thinking, delivering sustainable solutions that drive real business outcomes.
Learn more about meQuestions
Frequently asked
What does a fractional CTO do?
A fractional CTO gives you the strategic, architectural, and team-building leadership of a full-time CTO on a part-time basis — typically 1–3 days a week. That covers the technical roadmap, architecture review, hiring and mentoring, investor narrative, vendor selection, and crisis response, without the cost or commitment of a full-time executive hire.
When should a startup bring in a fractional CTO?
Three common moments: pre-seed to seed, when a technical founder needs senior architecture and hiring leverage; Series A, when the team and platform are scaling and need a steady technical hand; and crisis moments, when the technical foundation is breaking under growth and needs an outside perspective.
What kind of companies do you work with?
Mostly AI, Web3, and B2B SaaS startups and scaling companies in the US, UK, EU, Australia, and Japan (India on request). I work with a small portfolio of founders at a time so each engagement gets real attention.
What is your background?
I am a hands-on engineering leader with 18+ years building production systems. I have shipped platforms serving 250M+ users at Hike, Kirusa, and Nykaa, and led Nykaa's engineering from early stage through its IPO. I am the founder of Neul Labs (AI agent infrastructure) and a former Principal AI Architect at a UK fintech in Edinburgh.
How do engagements start?
A 30-minute call, free and with no obligation. If there is a fit, we scope a short trial — typically a four-week engagement — before committing to anything longer. You can start the conversation from the contact page.
Ready to scale your technology?
Let's discuss how I can help your team build the right technology, the right way.
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