Vidar Grasdal

I build platforms and lead global teams that deliver software serving hundreds of millions of users. With 15+ years leading platform engineering, developer experience, and quality initiatives across multiple industries, I focus on creating systems that power exceptional user experiences at scale. What motivates me is building software that real people use, whether it's AI-powered productivity tools used by millions, video platforms streaming the Olympics to viewers worldwide, or internal tools. I believe the best way to deliver great user experiences is by building great platforms and empowering product and engineering teams to ship faster and more reliably. At Quora, I build AI automation systems that remove manual work and improve company output. I focus on fixing workflows that slow teams down. I design and ship internal AI tools that increase throughput and support long term growth. At Microsoft, I led Developer Experience and Engineering Excellence for Office AI Automation. My work on Copilot Actions appeared in Satya Nadella's Ignite 2024 keynote. I improved DORA metrics by 40 to 70 percent by automating the release flow. I built self-service systems that improved speed and consistency for teams serving millions of Office users. Before Microsoft, I spent a decade at Vimond Media Solutions leading global teams that built video platforms serving 100M+ viewers across 60+ countries. We streamed major events like the Olympics and World Cups, maintaining 99.9995% uptime across 4B+ annual streams. I transformed developer satisfaction from NPS -38 to +43, increased release frequency by 300%, and led products that won industry recognition, including VIA App Builder (Best of Show, NAB 2024). Our platform enabled enterprise customers to onboard hundreds of content partners and deliver streaming experiences to their audiences in days instead of months. My work centers on building platforms that scale and helping teams deliver reliable products. I focus on systems that raise execution speed and reduce friction so teams can focus on real user problems. Technical expertise: Platform Engineering, Cloud Architecture, Developer Experience, Team Leadership, CI/CD & Release Engineering, Test Automation & Quality Infrastructure, Observability & Monitoring, Streaming Media, Generative AI Integration, Workflow Automation, AWS, Kubernetes, Terraform, Python, Java, Node.js, React. Looking to join Quora / Poe? See open positions at https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/quora?utm_source=LrRzQN8Nj6