Summary
Raman Varma is a software engineer and entrepreneur with five years of experience combining systems, security, and machine learning into product-focused engineering. As Co-founder & CEO of Kestrel AI (YC F25) and founder of Foundation Capital’s Build Accelerator, he blends hands-on technical leadership with early-stage startup building in the Bay Area. His background spans production engineering roles at Illumio and research stints at Berkeley RISE Lab, Square, and Coursera, giving him a rare mix of applied ML research and secure systems development. A UC Berkeley CS + Data Science alum, Raman has served extensively as course staff and mentor, signaling a commitment to teaching and technical clarity. He favors shipping reliable, secure infrastructure and has repeatedly moved research ideas toward production-grade systems. Colleagues note his knack for translating deep technical concepts into pragmatic product decisions under rapid timelines.
5 years of coding experience
3 years of employment as a software developer
Bachelor's degree Computer Science & Data Science, Bachelor's degree Computer Science & Data Science at University of California, Berkeley
English, Russian