Kristopher Merolla

Engineering & Product Leader

Kristopher Merolla

I'm an Engineering and Product leader who turns hard problems into shipped software, and quiet teams into confident ones.

See my experience Get in touch

About

My current focus is building AI agents for Cotality's Tax product line, bringing that work together with Stanford's NLP coursework and the agentic AI courses I keep taking on the side. I like sitting at the intersection of engineering depth and product judgment.

Over 13+ years in fintech and SaaS, I've grown from writing code as an engineer to leading the teams that write it, and now to shaping the products they build. Today I lead two engineering teams at Cotality, owning everything from greenfield builds to redesigns of platforms already in production.

Projects & Ventures

Recent personal projects built solo, outside the day job. Designed, built, and shipped end to end.

Obexis In Progress

AI Safety Copilot

A secure AI safety copilot that governs enterprise use of large language models. Obexis adds smart guardrails, compliance workflows, and monitoring so teams can harness generative AI with confidence.

Visit obexis.ai

Invoice Outpost

Invoicing & Cash Flow Ops

An iOS app that streamlines invoicing, helps teams track accounts receivable, and keeps cash flow healthy, giving operators a calm command center for revenue operations.

Download on the App Store Explore invoiceoutpost.com

Experience

Full history in the resume. Highlights below.

  1. Senior Software Engineering Manager

    Feb 2023 – Present

    Cotality · San Jose, CA

    • Recently expanded into building AI-agent-powered features for Cotality's Tax product line, partnering closely with product and data science.
    • Lead two engineering teams (10 engineers, 2 QA) building the Digital Mortgage Platform and third-party integrations.
    • Led a full redesign of the core application portal in six months, improving UI/UX and system efficiency.
    • Own architecture, performance, hiring, and roadmap alignment across a fast-moving fintech environment.

  2. Software Engineer → Senior Software Engineering Manager

    Jul 2018 – Feb 2023

    Roostify · San Francisco, CA

    • Promoted from Software Engineer to Manager, Software Engineering, and finally Senior Software Engineering Manager over 4.5 years, leading fintech platform teams.
    • Partnered with product managers on feature architecture and roadmap planning, translating business priorities into shipped platform features.
    • Diagnosed high-priority production issues and optimized performance for high-traffic platforms using New Relic and Splunk.
    • Established engineering best practices for JIRA workflows, release planning, hiring, and mentorship frameworks.

  3. Technical Services Engineer

    Oct 2017 – Jun 2018

    4D Inc · San Jose, CA

    • Provided technical support and debugging for a global developer community; authored knowledge base content.
    • Built internal tools on the 4D platform to streamline sales and support operations.
    • Delivered live product demonstrations to customers and prospects, showcasing key capabilities and driving adoption.

  4. Lead Associate

    May 2012 – Mar 2017

    SmartStream Technologies · San Jose, CA

    • Ensured accurate, on-time delivery of critical stock, fund, and options data under strict SLAs for major financial institutions.
    • Managed a 10-person data analyst team supporting a joint venture with Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase, and Goldman Sachs.
    • Partnered with product engineers and senior leadership to resolve data mapping and loading issues, improving system accuracy and efficiency.
    • Built analytical dashboards giving leadership visibility into key exchange data points.

Skills

AI & Machine Learning

PyTorch NLP Deep Learning Azure AI

Languages

Ruby Python JavaScript TypeScript SQL

Frameworks

Ruby on Rails React Angular Express Django Flask

Cloud & Infrastructure

AWS (S3, EC2, EKS) Azure Heroku Node.js Nginx Ubuntu

DevOps & CI/CD

Git/GitHub Jenkins CircleCI Docker Kubernetes Elastic Snowflake New Relic

Product & Leadership

Product Strategy & Roadmapping Engineering Leadership Agile / Scrum Hiring & Mentorship Cross-functional Collaboration

Education

  • Agentic AI Ongoing

    Udemy

    Self-directed coursework on building and orchestrating autonomous AI agents.

  • Natural Language Processing with Deep Learning

    Stanford Online

    Completed as part of Stanford's AI Professional Program, covering deep learning approaches to NLP using Python, PyTorch, and Azure.

  • Certificate of Completion, Web & Application Development

    CodingDojo · Jul 2017

    Full-stack Python/Django, MEAN (MongoDB, Express, Angular, Node), iOS/Swift.

  • Bachelor's Degree: Physics

    Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo · Jun 2010

    Classical Mechanics, Astronomy, Thermal Physics, EE Fundamentals, Statistics, Calculus, Linear Algebra.

Let's work together

Open to full-time positions, leadership training, and startup collaboration.

Email me