Pratheeksha Seetharama
I build things for people who make things. Engineer first, then a leader of engineers, in New York.
About
I started in infrastructure, keeping software distribution and production systems running at a bank, and moved to consumer products because I wanted to work closer to the people using what I built. For most of the last decade that has meant the tools LinkedIn's members use to write, publish, film, measure and earn: the editor, the composer, video and live events, creator analytics and monetization.
I went from engineer to Staff in three years and have led teams since, lately an organization of about thirty across mobile, web and backend. What I enjoy most is the stretch where a team has to learn a new thing faster than the field around it, and the discipline of killing a bet cleanly when it stops earning its keep.
Away from work: heavy lifting, cooking South Asian food, watches, film, and a long-running interest in linguistics. I lead the Women in Tech NYC chapter.
Experience
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2022 – presentSenior Manager, Software Engineering · LinkedIn, New YorkLead Creator Platform strategy and product development across creation tools, creator analytics, Creator AI and monetization; a 31-person organization through engineering managers. Established the Creator AI team. Pivoted the org onto Brand Partnership Ads and delivered the beta in two months. Led the move to AI-native coding, taking PRs per engineer per day from 0.4 to 1, and the adoption strategy across a 150-plus engineering org. Previously led Video and Live Streaming through four engineering managers.
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2020 – 2022Manager, Software Engineering · LinkedInBuilt the creator analytics team from scratch, 6 to 20 engineers. Led the rebuild of LinkedIn's eight-year-old article editor.
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2017 – 2020Software Engineer → Staff Software Engineer · LinkedInBackend architecture for the editorial notifications platform at more than a billion notifications a day. Led the relocation of the Article Publishing platform from California to New York and rebuilt the team around the one engineer who moved.
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2016Software Intern, Trust and Safety · Twitter, San FranciscoAbuse counting in BotMaker, Twitter's real-time rules engine for fighting spam and abuse.
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2012 – 2015Software Engineer, Business Application Infrastructure · Goldman Sachs, BengaluruIn-house package distribution infrastructure and standardized application services for the Linux runtime.
Selected work
Brand Partnership Ads
After a company priority shift, pivoted the team onto brand partnerships, aligned Ads, Consumer, product marketing and sales, and shipped the beta in two months, in time for Cannes Lions. Beta creators grew branded posts per active creator 40% and unique branded creators 11% against the control group.
Video and live streaming
Led the video tab and carousel feed, grew video creation 40% year over year, improved player performance and cut hardware costs 15%, partnering with Media Infrastructure, Video AI and Ads.
Creator AI
Formed the team, hired its manager and founding engineers, and took AI-powered creator insights from zero to a production experiment that lets creators benchmark against peers. Moved the wider org to AI-native coding: PRs per engineer per day from 0.4 to 1, shared context repos, on-call agents.
Article editor rebuild
Replaced the eight-year-old Quill editor with TipTap, balancing infrastructure investment against the roadmap; stability and the editing experience improved and the backlog of editor issues went to near zero.
Editorial notifications at a billion a day
Backend architecture for the platform that routes LinkedIn's editorial notifications, built as a Staff engineer.
Education
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2017MS, Computer Science · New York UniversityMachine learning, deep learning, computer vision, search engine architecture.
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2012BTech, Information Technology · National Institute of Technology KarnatakaAdvanced algorithms, distributed systems, operating systems, compiler design.