Nihal Pandey

Senior Founding Engineer & Tech Lead @ Tvaram

I'm Tvaram's senior founding engineer and tech lead, building the backend behind Tasvam, the data intelligence layer, and MailTitan, email sending infrastructure. Both are launching soon. I also land PostgreSQL internals fixes in ParadeDB (YC S23).

See What I'm Building GitHub LinkedIn Resume
Now Building

Senior Founding Engineer & Tech Lead @ Tvaram

Building two products at Tvaram: Tasvam, the data intelligence layer, and MailTitan, email sending infrastructure. Both announced, launching soon.

Building Tasvam · MailTitan
Open Source ParadeDB (YC S23) · PostgreSQL internals

Engineering Highlights

2 systems

Building Tasvam and MailTitan end to end

Sr. Founding Engineer & Tech Lead @ Tvaram

4 PRs

ParadeDB (YC S23) · PostgreSQL internals

3 merged · 1 in review

648K msgs/sec

WebSocket throughput benchmark

Kraken Market Data Engine

10M+ transactions

Atomic SQL guarantees, zero data loss

Production EVM Indexer

6x Winner

Hackathon wins incl. Smart India Hackathon

Client: Government of India (NTRO)

Tvaram · Launching soon

Tasvam

The data intelligence layer of the Tvaram ecosystem. Designed and built end to end as the sole engineer.

Case study coming after launch
Tvaram · Launching soon

MailTitan

Enterprise email sending infrastructure for high-volume, mission-critical delivery. Built solo, backend to deploy.

Case study coming after launch

Tvaram ↗

Jun 2026 - Present

Senior Founding Engineer & Tech Lead

  • Built the backend for both products solo: MailTitan (email sending infrastructure) and Tasvam (the data intelligence layer), both launching soon.
  • Promoted from Founding Engineer to Senior Founding Engineer & Tech Lead within three months.
  • Now leading a team of interns as the first full-time engineers are hired.
  • Own the backend end to end on both products.
  • Engineering write-ups and case studies coming once the products are live.

ParadeDB (YC S23) ↗

Apr 2026 - Present

Open Source Contributor · Rust / PostgreSQL

  • Multiple PRs merged into the production Rust codebase: query pipeline, scan execution, and PostgreSQL executor hooks
  • PR #4924 (merged): fixed a nested ExecutorRun panic on PG16, found a second bug on the recursive DML path during review, and replaced a depth counter with an RAII FrameGuard
  • PR #4763 (merged): fixed JoinScan returning wrong rows on self-joins with duplicate sort keys by rewriting physical projection to use column indices instead of name-based dedup
  • PR #4765 (merged): refactored ctid lookup across the query pipeline and removed five duplicate code blocks
  • PR #4752 (in review): partition-aware BM25 search via SPI expansion, plus lifecycle panic fixes in begin_custom_scan and rescan

Prime Minister's Office, Government of India

Jun 2025 - Sept 2025

Cybersecurity Research Intern

  • Built Rust/Tokio vulnerability scanner deployed across critical government infrastructure
  • Cut manual vulnerability assessment time by 60% with zero downtime across distributed systems
  • Adopted by 2 internal security teams. Details under NDA.

Winner: UK AI Agent Hackathon 2026 (Kaspa Track)

Prize: 1st Place

Team KaspaSwarm

  • 1st place in the Kaspa track with KaspaSwarm
  • AI agent hackathon hosted by Imperial College London

Winner: aOS Andromeda Hackathon 2025

Prize: $2,500

Team Lead

  • 1st place out of 2,500+ global teams
  • Built production RWA tokenization platform with ERC-721 contracts and IPFS metadata in 48 hours

Winner: Smart India Hackathon 2024 (NTRO)

Prize: INR 100K

Tech Lead & Backend Developer

  • 1st place out of 50,000+ participants
  • Built agentless Windows vulnerability scanner reducing manual security analysis by 80%
  • Client: Government of India (NTRO)

4th Place: Kaspa Hackathon 2024

Prize: $1,250

Backend Developer

  • 4th overall out of international field
  • Won Most Creative Use of Kaspa and Best Real-Time Data Project

Finalist: Kraken Forge Hackathon 2025

Prize: Global Top Tier

Backend Developer

  • Selected as global top-tier finalist in performance optimization category

Winner: Graph-e-thon 2.0

Prize: INR 175K

Blockchain Developer

  • Built blockchain-based analytics solution for Technology Business Incubator event
  • Host: TBI Graphic Era
High-Performance Rust

Building a Deterministic, High-Throughput WebSocket Ingestor

A deep dive into building resilient Rust systems that handle 648k msgs/sec with zero drops. Covers actor patterns, buffer management, and error handling.

Read Article ↗
Distributed Systems

Designing a Crash-Safe, Idempotent EVM Indexer

Architecting a production-grade indexer using Rust and PostgreSQL. Focuses on atomic transactions, reorganization handling, and data integrity.

Read Article ↗
PostgreSQL Internals

Fixing Wrong Rows: Debugging ParadeDB's JoinScan on Self-Joins

A self-join with duplicate sort keys was returning wrong rows. How I traced it through the optimizer and rebuilt physical projection on column indices.

In Progress
PostgreSQL Internals

RAII in Postgres Extensions: Surviving Nested ExecutorRun

Why a depth counter can't model recursive DML in executor hooks, and how an RAII FrameGuard fixes it.

In Progress

About Me

I build backend systems where mistakes are expensive: customer data, email delivery, query execution. Most of the work is finding the invariant the system has to hold and making the database or the design enforce it, instead of trusting review to catch violations.

Right now that means Tasvam and MailTitan at Tvaram, plus PRs into ParadeDB's Rust codebase. Before that, Rust security tooling at the Prime Minister's Office.

Tech Stack

  • Go
  • Python
  • Rust
  • TypeScript / Node.js
  • PostgreSQL
  • Redis
  • Docker

Systems Interests

PostgreSQL internals · Distributed systems · Email infrastructure · Rust

Nihal Pandey

Get in Touch

Email is the fastest way to reach me. Happy to talk backend architecture, PostgreSQL internals, email infrastructure, or open source.

Say Hello