Founder • researcher • seeker

Sourya Kakarla

I am a seeker of truth and love grokking the universe through multi-disciplinary understanding. I love building things that are open and useful. I have a bias towards depth over superficial transient noise.

That ethic runs through agent infrastructure, multilingual language systems, cryptography, civilizational study, philosophy/spirituality, with a preference for open source and positive-sum games.

Stylized portrait evoking calm, coded contemplation
2025 —
Co-founder & CTO at Zone. Applied research on agent infrastructure for runtime reliability — starting with pre-commit simulation of proposed actions in safe production replicas. Read the thesis →
2023 – 2025
First ML hire, later ML lead at SkyLink (YC & Menlo-backed; acquired by Amadeus). Shipped a large-scale enterprise travel agent serving McKinsey, Tesla, Bain & Company, and others — over 40k users.
2022 – 2023
MS in Computer Science at Columbia University. Andrew P. Kosoresow Memorial Award for Excellence in Teaching and Service.
2021 – 2022
Co-founder & CTO at Ladduu. Voice-first commerce and multilingual assistant. Agent experiences for low tech savvy and non-English speaking India — WhatsApp and mobile agents for users in real Indic contexts.
2019 – 2021
PhD research in cryptanalysis at IIT Kharagpur — impossible differential attacks on AES. Left the program to build in the open world.
2017 – 2019
Software engineer at Microsoft. Worked on email engagement for Dynamics CRM at large scale, then decided research and startups were the real path.
2012 – 2017
BTech + MTech in Computer Science at IIT Kharagpur. Cryptanalysis research nominated for Best Master's Thesis. Best Paper Award at ASONAM 2016. Multiple hackathon wins.

Study and temperament

Literature, mythology, philosophy, and cosmology keep the technical work proportionate, patient, and inwardly quiet.

Reading

Started with fiction — ASOIAF, Hitchhiker's Guide, Stranger in a Strange Land, Catch-22. Drifted into a long non-fiction and "seeking" phase across Camus, Hesse, Dawkins, Harari, and the Sanatana Dharma, Buddhist, and Advaita traditions that still shape how duty, meaning, and moral consequence show up. Currently: The Infinite Game. Goodreads →

Music

Taste runs in seasons. Eastern devotional (Shiva Tandava Stotram, Aigiri Nandini), western classic/soft rock (Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin), and East–West fusion when the two meet cleanly. Can't sing, but have written a bit — a song in Telugu.

Writing

Scribbled poems as a cathartic pastime since school. "Holy Nature" — a favourite of mine — was featured in Poets of Columbia.

Soccer

Arsenal fan, Gooner for life. Receiving a Gold Medal through MS Hall in the IIT KGP General Championship is a highlight of the soccer life. FIFA is the one video game that stuck.

Full publications, awards, and the downloadable CV live on the resume page →