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$ whoamiengineer · devrel lead · perpetually in coffee #2

Bengaluru, IN 10+ yrs in DevRel GitHub

M V Karan is a developer by background, a developer relations leader by profession, and a builder at heart.

He started out writing code, building side projects, breaking things, fixing them, and getting stuck on the same problems every other developer gets stuck on. Over time, he realized that what he loved most was helping other developers get unstuck. That instinct turned into a decade-long career in Developer Relations.

Today, Karan is the International Director of Developer Relations at GitHub, where he leads developer engagement and ecosystem strategy for GitHub in India across GitHub Copilot, AI tooling, open source, and developer platforms. He also serves as GitHub's official media spokesperson in India, representing GitHub's point of view on developers, open source, AI, and the future of software development.

Karan has built developer functions from scratch twice: first as DigitalOcean's first international DevRel hire, and later as GitHub's first DevRel hire in India and the company's first regional DevRel lead globally. At GitHub, he helped scale international DevRel from one role into a multi-region function spanning India, LATAM, Brazil, and Africa. He has launched global developer programs, led multiple flagship developer events that brought together thousands of developers, and helped shape how GitHub shows up for developer communities around the world.

He has spoken at hundreds of developer events, delivered keynotes across markets, and presented live product demos during seven keynotes alongside Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella across India and Southeast Asia. He has also partnered with GitHub leadership on flagship developer moments and worked closely with C-level executives, government stakeholders, startups, enterprises, global systems integrators, and technology leaders across the ecosystem.

A big part of Karan's work has been helping developers and organizations understand where software is headed. He regularly works with business and engineering leaders through executive briefings, developer workshops, technical sessions, and strategic conversations on AI, open source, developer productivity, and platform adoption.

He is deeply passionate about the open source ecosystem, especially in India. Over the years, he has supported maintainers, communities, and projects as they grow from local efforts into globally recognized open source work, helping them find visibility, credibility, and the right platforms to tell their story.

Despite the title, Karan still codes every day: demos, side projects, internal tools, experiments, and rabbit holes that were definitely supposed to take only 30 minutes.

Still a developer at heart. Still happiest when the demo works. Still trying to help more developers build what comes next.

Professional Experience

August 2020 — Present5 yrs 9 mo● current

Director, International Developer Relations at GitHub

Joined as GitHub's first Developer Relations hire in India and the company's first regional DevRel lead globally. Grew with the role through Senior Manager and Director levels, leading developer engagement and ecosystem strategy across India, LATAM, Brazil, and Africa, and currently leading GitHub's developer engagement in India across GitHub Copilot, AI tooling, open source, and developer platforms.

Established GitHub's DevRel strategy in India from the ground up, and helped scale international DevRel from a single role into a multi-region function
Launched flagship programs including GitHub Sponsors in India, GitHub Open Source Grants, GitHub Satellite India, and GitHub Universe APAC
Launched GitHub's first global meetups program, enabling community organizers to run grassroots developer events across India, LATAM, Brazil, and Africa
Organized GitHub Constellation India, drawing over 1,000 developers, alongside other flagship developer conferences across markets
Delivered live product demos during seven keynotes alongside Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella across India and Southeast Asia
Serves as GitHub's authorized media spokesperson in India, representing GitHub's point of view on developers, open source, AI, and the future of software development

Karan's one of those rare gems that I have come across in my career. Sincerity, Dedication, Passion, Creativity, Focus — I could go on about what he has amazed me with. With a strong tech bent of mind, Karan is able to channel his strengths to come up with work streams that have a significant impact on the community, customers and colleagues. He's been everyone's go-to person for insights into data as well as ideas for problem solving. I'll be lucky to get to work with him again in the future!

Maneesh Sharma · Former MD & GM at GitHub India · now COO at TestMu AI

October 2019 — June 20208 months

Manager, Developer Experience at Automation Anywhere

Among the early hires on the Developer Experience team, responsible for laying the foundational strategy across developer journey mapping, content development, analytics, and outreach operations.

Built and managed internal systems for developer outreach and engagement, including scalable content workflows
Led strategic developer partnerships with Microsoft, aligning joint initiatives to promote platform adoption
Program-managed a global COVID-19 hackathon, overseeing end-to-end execution to mobilize developer talent

Karan is a man of many talents. He is at once a technologist and an artist, and he excels at anything he undertakes. I managed Karan at Automation Anywhere and found him to be an intelligent, reliable and committed member of the team. He will be an asset to any organization that he works for.

Mukund Srigopal · Former Head of Global Developer Marketing at Automation Anywhere · now Co-founder & CEO at Sparsa AI

June 2016 — September 20193 yrs 3 mo

Senior India Outreach Manager at DigitalOcean

First Developer Relations hire in India and globally outside the U.S., playing a foundational role in DigitalOcean's international expansion and developer ecosystem strategy.

Scaled developer community programs across India and helped extend them to global markets through high-impact outreach, content, and events
Grew webinar reach from 0 to 100+ countries, delivering ~32 live sessions featuring technical deep dives and startup AMAs
Boosted Hacktoberfest participation in India by 4× YoY, positioning DigitalOcean as a key player in India's open source ecosystem

Being one of the early hires on the DigitalOcean India team, Karan has played a key role in building a community presence for DO among developers in India. Karan is consistent in bringing new ideas to the team and is a creative marketer. Outside of fostering a community, Karan is also adept at brand design, email/social media marketing and video content production. Hustler, data oriented and process-oriented are the terms that best describe Karan. It's been a pleasure working with Karan and he will be an asset to any marketing organization!

Prabhakar Jayakumar · Former Country Head at DigitalOcean India · now Country Head at Starlink India

November 2015 — June 20167 months

Developer Evangelist Intern at Exotel

First Developer Evangelist at Exotel, where I built official SDKs for the Call & SMS APIs (Python, PHP), co-organized the company's first hackathon with Postman and SendGrid.

Built official SDKs for Call & SMS APIs in Python and PHP
Co-organized company's first hackathon with major partners
Established foundational processes for developer outreach, event partnerships, and swag operations

Education

B.E. · Visvesvaraya Technological University

Bachelor of Engineering (BE) in Information Science & Engineering

Computers had been a fascination long before college — somewhere between cracking open desktop cabinets, swapping out RAM sticks, fighting with floppies, and wondering how all the bits actually moved around. Engineering wasn't a default choice; it was the natural next step. Information Science specifically, because the fundamentals of how computers and data systems work was — and still is — genuinely interesting to learn.

Certification · Indian School of Business

Product Management (Online Executive Certificate Programme)

Product-first thinking had always been an undercurrent — even when most of the work was hands-on engineering. This programme made it explicit: how user needs get pulled out and validated, how products move from rough idea to launch, and the messier bits in between (scoping, testing, packaging, marketing). The lasting takeaway was practical — a sharper way to partner with both product managers and developers, and to think harder about whether what's getting built will actually matter to anyone.

Certification · CNCF

Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA)

DevOps had always been a quiet obsession — building software is one thing, but the rest of the journey (tests, pipelines, packaging, deployment, reliability) is honestly where a lot of the satisfaction lives. Maybe a little too much: there's a long-running guilty habit of overengineering ops even on small side projects, until someone — sometimes an AI assistant — points out it's overkill and time to cut it back. Simplicity wins in software, every time. Kubernetes was the natural next layer to dig into, and the certification was the excuse to actually understand how it orchestrates all of this rather than just operate it.

Let’s connect

If any of this resonates — or if you just want to swap notes on developer tools, AI, open source, or why a 30-minute side project always turns into a 6-hour rabbit hole — get in touch.

Get in touch