Sanjay Rajagopalan is co-founder and chief design officer of Hang Ten Systems, a company in Palo Alto, California, started in 2026 that builds and modernizes enterprise software with small teams and AI agents. A Stanford-trained design researcher, he has worked alongside Vishal Sikka for most of two decades, at SAP, at Infosys and at the AI company Vianai Systems.
Design Research at Stanford
Before graduate school he used computer-aided design software to model and analyze automotive parts such as transmissions for heavy earth-moving equipment. At Stanford University, where he earned a doctorate in manufacturing and design, he was drawn to work on design methods and human-computer interaction at the Center for Design Research, which he has called “the crucible in which the Stanford d.school was forged” (AI-Tech Park).
Design Teams at SAP and Infosys
He spent about ten years running design and special projects at SAP, contributing to work such as SAP HANA, the SAP Fiori user interface and the SAP Startup Focus program, and worked there with Sikka and Hasso Plattner. At Infosys, where Sikka was chief executive, he became the company’s first corporate-wide head of design. He introduced design thinking there, helped run a training program that reached more than 140,000 employees in three years, and started a strategic design consulting group for large clients (sanjayrajagopalan.com).
Vianai Systems and Hang Ten
From 2019 to April 2026 he was chief design and strategy officer at Vianai Systems, Sikka’s enterprise AI company. At Hang Ten he is also head of applied AI solutions. He told TechCrunch that some Hang Ten projects use teams of two to four people where about 30 might have been used before, with the customer or an independent party still certifying the result.