Open for full-time roles

I build profitable developer communities that people actually want to be in.

Community work is often hard to measure. I build the layer that makes it measurable. The same numbers that show what developers gained also show what the business got back.

Most recently built the creator and community function at Firecrawl, where creator-attributed referrals grew 4x (1.7K → 7.2K weekly). Before that at Google, built a profitable 300+ partner ecosystem and a 3,500-person mentor network across India that supported the professional growth of 150K+ early-career developers.

See what I've done ↓ or request my resume →

Trained GitHub Campus Expert & Meta Certified Community Manager

How I Work

Community is not a cost center. Here's the why.

Two questions are hard to answer in most community work. What did a member actually get out of this? And what did the company get back? I build programs where both are answerable, backed by data, and come from the same system.

What do members actually get?

People join for different reasons. Some want to learn, some want an audience, some want recognition for work they already do. I design rewards around what members actually value — early access, mentorship, visibility, and real support for their growth. I also make sure what the program gives back is worth what it costs, so it keeps running instead of ending with a budget cycle.

What about the attribution layer?

Showing what community work returned usually needs engineering time, and that time is hard to come by on any team. So I build it myself — Apps Script automations to collect the data, Looker Studio dashboards to make it readable. At Google that turned manual reporting into something the program could actually see itself in. At Firecrawl I shipped affiliate tracking down to each partner, and the team used it to decide payouts.

Both sides read the same numbers

This is a habit I've built over a decade — across independent communities, GitHub, CodeChef, Google, and Firecrawl. The numbers that show what developers gained are the same numbers that show leadership what the program returned, so member value and business returns stop being two separate arguments. And communities that feel unfair or unsafe stop growing. Clear rules and good moderation aren't extras. They're what keeps the numbers going up.

Flagships

Campaigns, events, and partnerships that moved the needle

The programs I built and shipped end-to-end — with what they returned to the business and what they gave the community.

Google · 2022–2025 · Program Manager

India Edu Program by Google for Developers

Google's education-first developer program in India. My main program — I ran the partner network and rollout across cloud skills, Gemini adoption, and K-12 AI enablement.

For the business60K+ Gemini API developer adoptions; new revenue channel piloted through the partner network (Workspace for Education).
For the community200K+ learners across 200+ institutions; Gemini for K-12 and the AI Educator Series extended the program into schools in 7 Indian languages.

Educators community ↗ Program playlist ↗

Firecrawl · 2026 · Program Lead

Firecrawl Creator & Partner Programs

Four programs built from zero — Ambassador, Firestarter, Affiliate, and Student — with a five-tier system and payout logic tied to real attribution.

For the businessAttribution the team now uses to decide every creator payout.
For the communityCreator-attributed referrals grew 4x (1.7K → 7.2K weekly).

Ambassadors page ↗ Tier system teardown ↗ Payout design ↗

Google · 2022–2025 · Core Organizer & Educators Lead

India Community Summit

Google for Developers' invite-only annual summit for India's community leaders — GDG, GDE, TFUG, gaming, and startup organizers in one room. On the org team every year from 2022 to 2025.

For the businessThe forum where product, DevRel, and community leadership aligned on the year's programs and launches.
For the communityRepresented the Educators community to global internal stakeholders and Experts — landing Educators as a first-class program alongside engineering and startups.

Google · 2023–2025 · Core Organizer

Google I/O Connect Bengaluru

The Bengaluru edition of Google I/O — three consecutive editions on the org team. Ran community-side mobilization for GDG, GDE, and Educator attendees.

For the business1,800+ developers on-site (2024); stage for India-first launches — Gemma 2, IndicGenBench, MeitY Startup Hub partnership.
For the communityEducators community landed on the same stage as engineers and startups.

2023 recap ↗ 2024 recap ↗ 2025 recap ↗

Google Cloud · 2025 · Community Mobilization

Agentic AI Day (Guinness World Record)

Google Cloud's single-day mass hackathon in Bangalore. Set the Guinness record for "Most participants in an agentic AI hackathon." I mobilized GDG chapters and the Educators community to participate.

For the businessGuinness World Record set at 1,941 adjudicated participants; 500+ prototypes built in a day.
For the community2,000+ developers across 700+ teams; organized cohorts arrived through GDG and educator networks.

Guinness announcement ↗

Google · 2023 & 2024 · Organizer

GDSC Graduation Days

The India-side celebration marking each Google Developer Student Clubs cohort — chapter recognition, Solution Challenge honors, and the transition of graduating leads into the alumni network.

For the businessRetention pathway from graduating student leads into ongoing Google community programs.
For the communityThe end-of-year recognition moment for the student leads who ran GDSC chapters across India.

Google · 2023–2025 · Technical Maintainer

Google Dev Library

Ran the publishing pipeline of Google's public showcase for developer-built projects — triage, CI/CD, coordination between vendor content and engineering.

For the businessLibrary grew +96% in 19 months; Cloud tripled, Maps launched from zero.
For the community358 developers earned their first byline on a Google property; 41% came back to publish again.

View Dev Library ↗ Launch announcement ↗

CodeChef · 2020–2022 · Community Manager

CodeChef Colleges Program

Grew the college partner network from 100 to 300+. Signed MoUs, ran workshops, and stood up a Discord for each partner college.

For the businessCodeChef became the default classroom platform for competitive programming at 3x the number of colleges.
For the communityEvery partner college got its own Discord and a regular workshop cadence.

College Program page ↗

Mozilla Punjab · 2019–2020 · Founder & Organizer

Autumn Hacks

A hackathon built from a name and nothing else — twice. On-campus MLH Local Hack Day in 2019; fully virtual with four inclusion-led tracks in 2020.

For the business14 sponsors across two editions — GitHub, Cloudflare, Gatsby, Twilio, and more.
For the community500 hackers shipped projects across the two events.

View Autumn Hacks ↗

Extended Contributions

Sister programs I helped run

Alongside my main program, I contributed to managing four adjacent developer communities under Google for Developers India — bringing content, community mobilization, and event support to the teams that owned each.

Google Developer Groups on Campus (fka GDSC)

India's student developer chapter network — active at roughly 700 Indian campuses at its peak.

Google Developer Experts

Google's recognition program for verified experts in Google technologies, part of a 1,000+ global network.

Google Developer Groups

Community-led local developer chapters across India's metros and tier-2/3 cities — the hosts of DevFest and I/O Extended editions.

Google for Startups

Google's equity-free accelerator for India's AI-first startups — 2026 cohort selected 20 from ~2,500 applicants.

Selected Work

Here's what that looks like in practice.

Firecrawl Attribution

Building the attribution layer that made partner ROI measurable at the individual level

Nothing tracked which partners were actually bringing in signups. I built that tracking from scratch. The same system now works out what each partner gets paid and what the program returned. One system, both answers.

Result

What the team now uses to decide every partner payout

How I did it →

Google Trust & Safety

Keeping a partner ecosystem safe without breaking developer velocity

New safety rules had to reach every partner program — protecting members without grinding everything to a halt. I worked between Legal, Product, and DevRel to turn strict policy into rules partners could actually follow. Then I rolled it out across partners at very different levels of readiness. Communities that stop feeling safe stop growing.

Result

Zero compliance incidents during national rollout

Internal Tooling

Automating away 40 hours of weekly busywork

Partner onboarding was a manual nightmare — forms, approvals, data entry. I built Apps Script workflows that automated the whole thing. I added Looker Studio dashboards so people could check things themselves. The team got their week back.

Savings

~40 engineering hours reclaimed every week

How I did it →

Career

Where I've done this

The same approach at every scale — from communities I started myself back in 2018, to a 3,500-person mentor network at Google, to building a creator programme from zero at a Series A startup.

Apr 2026 – May 2026

Firecrawl

Creator & Community Lead

Series A web-data company for AI. Built the partner and creator programs from zero — Ambassador, Firestarter, Affiliate, and Student. Grew creator-attributed referrals 4x (1.7K → 7.2K weekly). Built the affiliate tracking the team now uses to decide payouts.

May 2022 – Dec 2025

Google

Developer Community & Program Manager

Built and scaled a 300+ partner ecosystem across India, drove 70K+ Vertex AI activations and 60K+ Gemini API developer adoptions. Designed engagement strategy, exceeded quarterly OKRs by 50%, and piloted a new revenue channel (Google Workspace for Education) through the partner network. Also served as a technical maintainer of Google Dev Library, running the publishing pipeline that nearly doubled the platform's library.

Nov 2020 – May 2022

CodeChef

Community Manager

Grew the college partner network from 100 to over 300. Ran workshops and online campaigns, and set up a Discord community for each one under the CodeChef Colleges program. Signed MoUs that made CodeChef the default platform for coding and competitive programming in class.

Your org here

Developer Community & Program Manager

This card is empty on purpose. If you're growing a developer community and want it to pay for itself, I'd like to hear about it.

Let's talk →

Toolkit

What I work with

Core Skills

Stakeholder alignment
Risk management
Vendor negotiation
Cross-functional leadership
Launch planning
Partner onboarding frameworks
Affiliate attribution
Reward & payout design
KPI design

Tech I Build With

Google Apps Script
Looker Studio
Google Analytics (GA4)
GitHub Actions
Airtable

Program Management

Jira / Asana
Buganizer
Taskflow
GitHub Issues
Discord
Discourse
Figma

Domain Knowledge

Developer ecosystems
EdTech / Academia
AI / ML products & infrastructure
Community strategy
Partner ecosystems

Beyond Work

Things I care about

89 merged pull requests across Google, Mozilla, GitHub, and Gatsby. 66 more reviewed. Most of what I do in open source is helping other people ship.

Mozilla Punjab — Community Lead

Started and still lead an open source community built around inclusion and togetherness. Wrote its code of conduct and maintain the shared resources and talks repos the community runs on.

Since 2018 · Open Source · Community

GitHub Campus Expert

Trained through GitHub's eight-week programme, then spent two and a half years helping student leaders champion open source at their colleges. Built the Git workshop I taught it with.

2019–2021 · GitHub · Student Communities

gitinit

An open source workshop that teaches students Git and GitHub by having them open a real pull request. Ran for four years — I reviewed 29 of those first PRs myself.

2019–2023 · 9 stars · Teaching

Mozilla Rep

Community Coordinator for Punjab in Mozilla's Reps programme. Mobilised and supported regional communities, ran hands-on workshops, and covered engagement, education, localization and open design.

2020–2022 · Community · Open Web

Mozilla Open Design

Mozilla's experiment in running design work the way open source runs code — anyone could file a request, claim a task, or ship the source files. I contributed to it as part of my Reps remit.

400 stars · Open Source · Design

Gatsby Contributor

Contributed docs fixes and code reviews to Gatsby while it was one of the busiest React projects on GitHub — the kind of unglamorous work that decides whether a newcomer lands their first PR or gives up.

2019–2021 · Open Source · React

Knine.ngo

Built the full-stack donation platform for K-Nine Animal Welfare Society, a volunteer-run rescue NGO. Raised INR 2.5M+ for rescue operations.

Full Stack · Impact

TubeMonitor

Built TubeMonitor — an internal tool tracking creator performance and competitive share-of-voice.

Internal Tools · Analytics

What people say

How I am to work with.

Vishal operates with a level of steadiness and empathy that acts as a stabilizing force... drive high-performance results while maintaining a culture of trust.

Smita Bagwadi

Sourcing & Insights Lead, Google

Vishal operates with an exceptional level of rigor and operational precision. He blends technical understanding with a strong project management mindset.

Madhup Sukoon

AI Consultant, Google

He is very passionate about the communities that he looks after... I'm positive that he will be a great asset to any team.

Tojo Chacko

Senior PM Lead, Unacademy

View all recommendations on LinkedIn →

Writing

How the work actually got built

Programs I built

How I designed a five-tier ambassador program that 4x'd creator referrals

A developer ambassador program built from zero: why tier is one rolling number, not follower count, and how ten creators became a 4x lift in referrals.

Jun 2026 · 5 min Programs I built

Why I paid creators for the video, not the views

Per-view and per-signup payouts both quietly ruin the content. The flat-fee and points structure I used instead, and how to define the content types.

Jun 2026 · 6 min Proving the work

How to prove what your developer community returned, without engineering help

A DevRel attribution schema you can actually build: four tables, an Apps Script to Looker Studio pipeline, and no engineering time required.

Jul 2026 · 6 min

Read all 18 pieces →

Need a community developers love that also pays for itself?

I'm looking for Developer Community and Program Manager roles. Send me the job description and I'll reply with a resume matched to what you're hiring for. And if you're not hiring, I'm always up for a good conversation about building developer communities.

Send me the JD Book a 15-min Chat Connect on LinkedIn