For many engineers, the path into technology starts with a job. For Rahul M, it started with curiosity.
While still in college, Rahul was already building products and exploring how large software systems worked. One of his early products, Tagsdock, a keyboard app that helped users add hashtags faster, was featured in The Next Web and other publications. At the same time, he was also active as a security researcher, responsibly disclosing vulnerabilities across major global technology companies including Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon, and others.
One of his early security disclosures was covered by The Times of India in 2015. But for Rahul, security research was never just about finding flaws. It became a way to understand how products break, how users can be exposed to risk, and how better systems can be built.
That mindset eventually took him into the heart of the global startup ecosystem through Product Hunt, one of the world’s most influential communities for founders, makers, startups, and product launches.
Rahul spent six years at Product Hunt, growing from a full-stack engineer to an associate team lead. During his time there, he worked across core product, growth, ads, newsletters, spam prevention, experimentation, and infrastructure. His work touched several parts of the platform used by millions of founders, makers, investors, and technology enthusiasts around the world.
“Product Hunt gave me a front-row seat to how products are launched, how communities form around them, and how small product decisions can shape the experience of millions of users,” Rahul says.
His background in security also played an important role in how he approached product engineering. Having spent years thinking about abuse, loopholes, and system failure, Rahul brought a trust-and-safety lens to product development, especially in areas like spam prevention, fraud detection, and platform integrity.
Over the years, Rahul has also been recognised as an Apple WWDC Scholar, Forbes Technology Council member, and IEEE Senior Member, milestones that reflect his long-running involvement in technology, software engineering, and product building.
Today, Rahul is a founding engineer at Hero, an AI-native marketplace startup that helps users list and sell products faster. Hero uses AI to identify products from photos, suggest listing details, and simplify the resale process for everyday users.
Alongside his work at Hero, Rahul continues to build independent products. His recent projects include Sontri, an AI-powered browser extension designed to warn users before they trust phishing or scam websites, and Kofe Flow, a minimal focus timer for Mac. Kofe Flow recently crossed 300+ downloads from Reddit with a 4.9 App Store rating, showing how even simple products can resonate when they solve real user pain points.
Rahul’s journey reflects a broader shift in India’s technology talent story. Indian engineers are no longer only building for outsourced software teams or local markets. Increasingly, they are contributing to global products, shaping startup ecosystems, building AI-native tools, and creating products that serve users across borders.
From building apps in college, to finding vulnerabilities in some of the world’s biggest technology companies, to working inside Product Hunt’s global maker ecosystem, Rahul’s path shows how curiosity, product thinking, and systems-level engineering can come together in a modern technology career.
For Rahul, the common thread across all of it remains simple: build useful things, understand systems deeply, and keep learning from real users.
“Whether it is security research, Product Hunt, Hero, Sontri, or Kofe Flow, I’ve always been drawn to the same question,” Rahul says. “How do you build something people can trust, use, and genuinely benefit from?”
