AI Strategy & Transformation
Turning AI from experimentation into production capability, measurable business outcomes and sustainable organisational advantage.
AI & Engineering Executive
Kanishka
Mohaia
Sydney, Australia
I build and scale AI, engineering and data organisations — from real-time machine learning operating at global scale to human-centred AI in healthcare and wellbeing.
My work combines deep technical leadership, organisational scale and responsible AI to turn emerging technology into production systems and measurable business outcomes.
- 15+ yearsAI, ML, data & engineering
- Global team scaleEngineering teams scaled across different geographies
- Millions → billionsReal-time ML transactions scaled
- Named inventorMachine learning & contextual prediction · US Patent 11,776,013
About
Deep technical leadership. Organisational scale. AI built for the real world.
My career has spanned three generations of applied AI — from NLP and language-data systems, through real-time machine learning and ranking, to today’s generative and agentic AI.
At Rokt, I spent almost eight years helping scale engineering and machine learning as the company grew from Series B into a global, multi-billion-dollar technology business. I grew my engineering organisation from four engineers to 80–90 across seven teams in Sydney and New York, while leading teams responsible for real-time decisioning, ML infrastructure, experimentation and recommendation systems operating across billions of marketplace transactions.
Today at Sonder, I lead engineering, data, platform and AI across a healthcare and wellbeing platform. My focus is turning AI capability into safe, measurable production systems — including human-in-the-loop AI that supports care professionals while preserving judgment, accountability and appropriate operational controls.
Across both environments, the challenge is fundamentally the same: turn technology into organisational capability — build the teams, platforms and operating discipline required to make sophisticated systems work reliably at scale.
Areas of Focus
Where I create the most value.
I operate at the intersection of technology strategy, AI, engineering execution and organisational leadership.
Production AI & Agentic Systems
Building AI systems with evaluation, observability, human oversight and operational controls designed for real-world deployment.
Engineering & Technology Scale
Scaling engineering organisations, platforms and operating models while improving ownership, technical standards and execution.
High-Trust Technology
Applying AI where reliability, safety, privacy, governance and human judgment are fundamental to adoption.
Selected Experience
15+ years building production systems and technology organisations.
From early applied AI and data platforms to global machine learning infrastructure and AI-first healthcare.
Sonder
VP of AI & Engineering
I lead engineering, data, platform and AI across Sonder’s healthcare and wellbeing platform, with executive responsibility for technology strategy, architecture, engineering capability and the adoption of production AI in a high-trust environment.
- Conceived and led Sonder’s human-in-the-loop AI Copilot strategy, from concept through evaluation, safety design and production deployment for care workflows.
- Built production AI capabilities designed to reduce cognitive load and give care professionals better context while preserving human judgment and accountability.
- Established shared AI platform capabilities, evaluation practices, model governance and engineering standards across product and platform teams.
- Modernised customer reporting and analytics, replacing legacy workflows with scalable customer-facing data capabilities.
- Reshaped engineering operating practices around stronger ownership, fewer dependencies, AI-assisted development and a higher talent bar.
Rokt
VP of Engineering, AI/ML
I joined Rokt shortly after its Series B and spent almost eight years helping scale its engineering and machine-learning capabilities through a period of rapid global growth. I grew my organisation from 4 engineers to 80–90 across seven teams in Sydney and New York, establishing Rokt’s first New York machine-learning team and leading capabilities spanning real-time decisioning, ML infrastructure, experimentation, feature platforms and recommendations.
- Helped scale real-time machine-learning systems from millions to billions of marketplace transactions.
- Built and led globally distributed engineering and ML organisations responsible for business-critical production systems.
- Established teams and platforms supporting experimentation, recommendation and real-time decisioning at global scale.
- Named inventor on machine-learning patents covering contextual prediction and content ranking, including US Patent 11,776,013.
Datalicious
Head of Engineering
Led engineering across data platforms, analytics products, attribution, DevOps and full-stack product development through a period of company growth.
Appen
Software Developer / Senior Engineer
Early applied AI and NLP engineering, building language, translation, transcription, voice and data-processing systems for global technology clients.
This work provided early foundations in the data and infrastructure behind production machine-learning systems.
Speaking & Thought Leadership
Ideas forged in production, not theory.
I speak about the problems that emerge when AI moves beyond experimentation: trust, economics, evaluation, human judgment, organisational design and operating reliably at scale.
DataEngBytes 2026 · Keynote · Sydney & Melbourne
The Trust Gap: Why the Next Wave of AI Won't Be Won on Capability Alone
Why increasingly capable models are not enough — and why trust, governance, economics and operational accountability become defining challenges when AI enters consequential production environments.
AWS Summit Sydney 2026 · Solo Talk
Building a Human-in-the-Loop AI Copilot on AWS
How we built Sonder’s human-in-the-loop AI Copilot on AWS, combining production AI with human oversight for high-trust care workflows.
DataEngBytes Sydney 2025 · Panel
ML/AI Panel: Bringing AI to Production
Panel discussion on the practical challenges of moving machine learning and AI systems into production.
UNSW Engineering Graduation Ceremony · Guest Speaker
Career lessons for graduating engineers
Career lessons and reflections for graduating engineers at the University of New South Wales.
DataEngBytes 2025
Fine-tuning or RAG?
Technical session covering retrieval-augmented generation, fine-tuning and LoRA.
DataEngBytes 2023
Unleashing the Power of Real-Time Machine Learning
Rokt’s journey building web-scale machine-learning and real-time decisioning systems.
AWS for Software Companies Podcast
Accelerate Machine Learning
Discussion on building ML teams, platforms and production systems.
Listen →Bring production experience into the conversation.
I speak and advise on AI strategy, production AI, engineering scale and the realities of deploying intelligent systems where trust and measurable outcomes matter.
For keynotes, executive forums, advisory work, media or strategic technology conversations, get in touch.