Rahul Sawhney

Engineer. Engineering leader. Still a builder.

I've spent most of my career building software, leading engineering teams, and helping people work through difficult technical problems.

My career has taken me through companies including Amazon, The Knot Worldwide, AppFolio, Citrix, Infosys, and Philips. I've worked on enterprise systems, software products, engineering teams, and initiatives that required coordination across multiple parts of an organization.

What I've enjoyed most is working with engineers to solve difficult problems and seeing the work make it into production.

I like understanding how systems work, asking questions when something doesn't add up, and helping teams make decisions they can actually execute.

I also like staying technically involved. Leadership and hands-on engineering have always been closely connected for me.

Selected experience

AppFolio

Worked with the engineering team to improve how work moved through delivery. Story cycle time decreased from approximately 20 days to 3 days.

Amazon

Led enterprise technology initiatives, including modernization work spanning more than 500 retail stores.

Managed six direct-report engineers and coordinated delivery involving approximately 18 project engineers across the broader effort.

The Knot Worldwide

Institutionalized AWS's AI-Driven Development Life Cycle (AI-DLC) within my engineering team, establishing a structured approach to AI-assisted software development.

Also built a cross-platform feature team focused on vendor search and discovery.

These examples come from my previous roles, not from paid CohesionStack consulting engagements.

Why I started CohesionStack

I started CohesionStack in 2025 as a place to get back to building software myself.

After years of leading engineering work through teams, I wanted more time to write code, experiment with new tools, and explore ideas firsthand.

That became the CohesionStack Lab, where I've worked with AI-assisted development, APIs, metadata tools, and other engineering experiments.

In 2026, I began expanding CohesionStack into an independent engineering leadership practice.

The two sides belong together for me. I enjoy leading people and complex engineering work, but I also want to stay close enough to the technology to understand the decisions engineers face.

Let's talk

If you're working through a difficult engineering challenge and could use experienced help, I'd be interested to hear about it.