Strategy · Architecture · People · Delivery

Engineering leader.
Building teams and platforms.

I develop engineering teams, set technical direction, and modernize customer-facing platforms. At Goldman Sachs and Consumer Reports, I worked with business and product partners to turn technical roadmaps into working software.

I remain hands-on: WordGenie is live on iOS, Android, and web, and I work with KRKB’s founder on its reading and literacy platform.

Get in touch
Anup Rai, smiling in a blue shirt and tie
Anup RaiNew York

LearnAstra · Founder

Product direction
through operation

Architecture, pricing, releases, and the services behind live mobile and web products.

Goldman Sachs · Vice President

Responsibility across
30+ digital platforms

Teams led by VP people managers, platform roadmaps, modernization, and delivery controls.

Consumer Reports · Engineering leadership

Publishing reduced
from hours to minutes

Platform modernization alongside career paths that helped QA analysts move into engineering.

01 Current work

Founder & Principal · August 2025–present

What I’m building at LearnAstra

I founded LearnAstra to build learning and literacy products. I set product direction and take responsibility for architecture, delivery, and operations: deciding what to build, evaluating AI quality and cost, setting pricing, and using analytics and feedback to guide the next release.

LearnAstra

WordGenie

Launched on iOS, Android, and web

A study app built around your own material.

I built and launched WordGenie to help people turn notes, PDFs, photos, and topics into study sets and quizzes. The app combines spaced repetition, active recall, pronunciation feedback, and review of weaker areas.

I own the mobile and web experience, backend and AI services, subscriptions, releases, and ongoing operations. I built the local storage and cross-device sync that connect the product across platforms.

KRKB — Kids Review Kids Books

Reading and literacy for children and families

Expanding a book-review community into a reading platform.

Working with KRKB’s founder, I developed the engineering behind a broader literacy experience: book discovery and reviews, quizzes, stories, clubs, and reading challenges. The platform also includes workflows for parents, educators, and libraries.

I built the services and background AI jobs for book enrichment and content review, alongside reading-program tools and reporting. Moderation combines automated checks with human review queues, so flagged submissions and generated content can be reviewed before publication.

The engineering behind the products

I’ve built AI services that work across model providers, with structured outputs, fallback handling, and evaluation. This gives me practical ways to compare quality and cost, handle provider failures, and review what the models produce.

Other work in development

I’ve also developed an applied-AI curriculum for LearnAstra Academy and working prototypes for Agency, a reasoning game, and Memvoy, a personal-memory product.

02 Experience

Professional experience

My enterprise roles combined technology direction with responsibility for the teams, partners, and delivery practices needed to put it into operation.

May 2022–August 2025

Financial services

Goldman Sachs

Vice President, Digital Transformation and Technology Lead, Client Apps

I led multiple engineering teams across time zones, including Asia and Europe, through VP people managers. My direct-report VPs led teams that included VPs, Associates, and Analysts, with employees and consultants responsible for platforms serving the Executive Office.

I led engineering and vendor teams responsible for more than 30 internet-facing applications and platforms, including goldmansachs.com. I worked with engineering, product, marketing, analytics, legal, and security partners to set roadmaps, guide architecture and vendor decisions, and manage operational risk.

Technology direction
Architecture, roadmaps, and vendor decisions. Modernization toward headless Adobe Experience Manager with React and Next.js.
Delivery responsibility
Stronger service ownership, release controls, accessibility, and performance monitoring across the platform portfolio.

2006–April 2022

Publishing, membership
& commerce

Consumer Reports

Senior Director, Web Engineering · 2022
Director · 2016–2022
Earlier engineering and management roles · 2006–2016

Led multiple engineering teams through Associate Directors, Senior Managers and Managers.

I progressed from Java development to responsibility for digital publishing, membership, and commerce platforms, partner teams, and end-to-end delivery.

I led the replacement of legacy publishing workflows with headless WordPress, APIs, and microservices, reducing content delivery from roughly 12 hours to minutes. This work also supported a related revenue line that grew from $200,000 to $12 million over six years—a shared result across the business, product, editorial, and engineering teams.

Alongside the platform work, I created career paths that helped QA analysts move into engineering roles.

03 Writing

A closer look at the engineering

I write about architecture, AI systems, and the decisions behind products. These pieces explore how to evaluate changes, carry an existing product forward, and build review into systems that need it.

All 11 articles

04 About

A technical and business perspective

I have more than 20 years of experience building customer-facing platforms and have managed engineering teams since 2010. Since 2016, my roles have included leading engineering managers. At Goldman Sachs and Consumer Reports, I set technical roadmaps, developed people, and worked across functions to deliver platform improvements.

My current work at LearnAstra keeps me close to product development and applied AI, from architecture and implementation to releases and operations. I’m interested in Director of Engineering and Senior Engineering Manager roles where I can help teams grow and deliver useful, reliable software.

I’m based in the New York metropolitan area. I hold an MBA from Baruch College in computer information systems and international marketing, and a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering.

05 Contact

Get in touch.

For opportunities or product and technical collaborations, you can reach me by email or on LinkedIn.