Navin Budhiraja is co-founder and chief technology officer of Hang Ten Systems, an AI development, implementation and consulting firm in Palo Alto, California, that Vishal Sikka started in 2026. A computer scientist trained at IIT Kanpur and Cornell University, he has spent his career building large enterprise and cloud platforms, at IBM Research, Amazon, SAP SuccessFactors, Infosys and Ansys.
From IIT Kanpur to Cornell and IBM Research
He earned a bachelor’s degree in computer science at the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur, India, and a doctorate in computer science at Cornell University (InTechnology podcast). His career has included IBM Research and Amazon Web Services, along with leadership roles at Vitria Technology, Augmentum, The Dealmap and CubeTree.
Platform Work at SuccessFactors and Infosys
As chief architect of SAP SuccessFactors from 2010 to 2014, he led the move of its platform from a single monolithic architecture to one built on microservices. He joined Infosys in 2014 as senior vice president and head of architecture and technology, where he led its AI and automation platform work, including Infosys Nia. From 2017 to 2022 he was vice president and general manager for systems and platform at Ansys, the engineering simulation company. He says products he has delivered are used by more than 50 million enterprise users (LinkedIn).
Vianai Systems and Hang Ten
He became chief technology officer of Vianai Systems, Sikka’s enterprise AI company, in April 2022 and also led its hila enterprise platform. He co-founded Hang Ten in May 2026, where he leads engineering and platforms (Hang Ten). He is also an angel investor and adviser to startups in AI, the internet of things and healthcare.