Manoj Dobbali

AI/ML Infrastructure Platform · Hyderabad, India

I build the infrastructure AI runs on.

Ten years of ML and AI infrastructure in the US, most recently leading the team behind MasterControl's ISO 42001–certified agentic AI platform. Now back in Hyderabad, plugged into the ecosystem here as a mentor, judge, and advisor.

Portrait of Manoj Dobbali

The through-line

It was always about optimization

The instruments changed — lathe tools, banner material, ad spend, GPU fleets. The instinct underneath them never did: measure it, then make it better.

01

Where it started

It began with cutting forces

At DRDO I ran design-of-experiments on cutting forces across different metals. Vary the inputs, measure what comes out, let the numbers settle an argument that opinion couldn't.

I didn't think of it as data work. It just seemed like the most honest way to arrive at an answer. That instinct never left.

02

Building things

Then I tried to make something people would buy

I raised an MSME grant to turn discarded banner material into eco-friendly bags. Later I co-founded Clapconcepts, a gifting company in Hyderabad, and Sketchmen, a digital marketing shop.

Different domain, identical instinct. What's the right product mix? Which channel actually converts? Where is the waste? I was running optimization problems before I had the vocabulary for them.

03

The data years

Learning to make the numbers pay for themselves

Overstock, then Backcountry, then Rakuten Rewards. Pulling dominant colors out of 100,000 product images to stop six-figure ad losses. Proving with Markov attribution that one channel was under-credited by 40%, which unlocked a $5M budget case.

By the end of it I'd stopped being the person who built the model and become the person who built what the models ran on.

$120K/yr
saved replacing a third-party CLV service
2 hrs → 1.16 min
model training, scaled to a GPU cluster
6 mo → 2 wks
time-to-production on the ML platform
04

The platform years

Infrastructure for AI that has to be auditable

I founded MasterControl's MLOps platform engineering practice from nothing, then architected GRID — a cloud-agnostic inference runtime that became the enterprise framework for every LLM and ML system in production.

Now I direct the whole function: strategy, architecture, and FinOps for global AI infrastructure, with a team across the US, India, Turkey, and Ukraine. Regulated life sciences means none of it ships unless it's observable, governed, and provable.

30%
inference infrastructure cost reduction
ISO 42001
certified agentic AI platform
4 countries
engineering team spread
05

Now

Back in Hyderabad, and mostly listening

After a decade in the US I moved home. I sit on the program committee for IEEE ICA 2026, mentor and judge a 75-team cohort at T-Hub's FEG Innovation Hackathon, and advise Applied Biosensors on their GenAI work.

The part I enjoy most is the 1:1s — someone two steps behind me on a path I've already walked. That's what the booking links below are for.

Track record

Where I've done it

  • 2023 — Now
    MasterControl logo

    MasterControl

    Manager, MLOps Engineering · Senior MLOps Platform Engineer

    Founded the MLOps platform practice; architected GRID; now direct global AI infrastructure strategy.

  • 2019 — 2023
    Rakuten Rewards logo

    Rakuten Rewards

    Senior ML Engineer, ML Platform · ML Engineer, Data Products

    Built the ML platform that took time-to-production from six months to two weeks.

  • 2018 — 2019
    Backcountry.com logo

    Backcountry.com

    Data Scientist

    Marketing science — customer lifetime value, attribution, and A/B testing.

  • 2016 — 2019
    Overstock.com logo

    Overstock.com

    Associate Data Scientist · Data Science Intern

    Applied data science for paid search, product listings, and customer experience.

  • 2014 — 2015

    Clapconcepts

    Co-founder

    Gifting e-commerce — product, sourcing, and digital marketing.

Beyond the day job

Judging, advising, and the things I've started

Judging & Program Committees

  • IEEE Intl. Conference on Agentic AI (ICA 2026) logo

    Program Committee Member

    IEEE Intl. Conference on Agentic AI (ICA 2026)

    Kumamoto, Japan — also reviewer for other IEEE conferences

  • T-Hub FEG Innovation Hackathon 2026 logo

    Mentor & Jury Member

    T-Hub FEG Innovation Hackathon 2026

    Hyderabad — evaluating a 75-team cohort

  • University of Utah logo

    Hackathon Judge

    University of Utah

    Two GenAI hackathons

Advisory & Ventures

  • Applied Biosensors logo

    Technical Advisor

    Applied Biosensors

    Guiding GenAI and machine learning initiatives

  • Co-founder

    Clapconcepts

    Gifting e-commerce; now part of Encase Packaging

  • Co-founder

    Sketchmen

    Digital marketing

Education

Alma mater

  • University of Utah logo

    MS, Information Sciences

    University of Utah

  • Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University logo

    MBA, Marketing

    Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University

  • Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University logo

    B.Tech, Mechanical Engineering

    Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University