Messaging Infrastructure · AI Product Leadership
salimcan venedik
Staff Software Engineer · Technical Lead at Insider
I scaled web push to 24B notifications a month, then built WhatsApp and SMS from zero. Now I move hundreds of millions of messages a month — and help product teams ship AI without losing reliability.
Today I lead WhatsApp, SMS, and conversational AI product engineering inside a 500+ engineer organization.
About
I work at the intersection of distributed systems, product strategy, and delivery discipline. At Insider, I lead messaging and AI product engineering, turning scale and execution ambiguity into systems teams can trust. Earlier work in education and legal workflow automation taught me to turn operational pain into practical software.
Trusted by teams at Samsung, Adidas & Unilever
Experience
Where I've worked
Insider
$2B+ martech platform · 1,200+ enterprise customers · Equity holder since 2021
Scaled Web Push from 1.3B to 24B monthly notifications.
Built WhatsApp and SMS from zero into core enterprise product lines — ~400M messages a month today.
Leading messaging and AI product engineering across a 500+ engineer organization.
Driving org-level technical direction, platform leverage, and high-signal engineering review systems. Also Technical Lead of the WhatsApp and SMS product teams since Aug 2021.
Built WhatsApp capabilities from zero and hardened delivery with multi-provider routing and automatic failover under enterprise traffic.
Built core messaging infra — multi-provider, rate limiting, failover.
Ran sprint ceremonies while shipping (2019–2021), now coaching engineers and QA on system design, delivery habits, and career growth (2021–present).
ideaKup Web Technologies
Workflow automation, e-commerce, file tracking. Full-stack.
Turkish State Folk Dance Ensemble
International stages: Turkmenistan, Tunisia, Dubai, Morocco.
Benarti Software Solutions
First exposure to production code and real deadlines.
Projects
Selected case studies
A few systems where architecture, product judgment, and delivery rigor all had to show up at once.
Developer Experience · AI Systems
AI Code Review System
Built an automated review layer that catches risky changes before humans spend time on them, optimized for practical signal instead of generic AI commentary.
- Rolled out across 266 repositories in a 500+ engineer organization
- Flags breaking changes, risky migrations, security concerns, and review blind spots
- Runs on every PR with cost-aware prompts and production-friendly latency
Reliability · Distributed Systems
Messaging Platform at Scale
Scaled a multi-provider messaging backbone used by enterprise teams and global brands across high-volume notification use cases.
- Designed rate limiting, failover, provider routing, and recovery paths
- Supported WhatsApp, SMS, and Web Push under constantly shifting throughput patterns
- Focused on operational resilience so product teams could ship without babysitting delivery
0→1 Product Engineering
AI Chatbot Product
Led engineering from early product shaping through production rollout for a conversational AI experience inside a complex enterprise platform.
- Turned ambiguous product ideas into scoped releases and reusable architecture
- Balanced experimentation speed with reliability, observability, and platform constraints
- Built alignment across product, engineering, and go-to-market stakeholders
Open Source
cli-usage-bar
A macOS menu bar app for live Claude Code and Codex CLI usage tracking — see your remaining quota at a glance without leaving the keyboard flow.
- Tracks Claude Code and Codex CLI usage live from the menu bar
- Released under the MIT license
- View on GitHub
Writings
How education shaped my leadership philosophy
Before software became my career, education taught me how trust, clarity, and growth actually work. These essays are the roots of the leadership principles I still bring to engineering teams: empathy, feedback, discipline, and respect.
Real Communication & Respect for People
On building genuine connections through respect and empathy.
2015What Makes a Good Teacher?
The qualities that separate great educators from the rest.
201521st Century Students & Teachers
How education must evolve for the modern generation.
Speaking & Community
Speaking, mentoring, and community
- Talks Delivered system design and AWS architecture talks at five universities including Bilkent, Hacettepe, and METU.
- Conference Speaker at PHP Conference (2020).
- Workshop "The Art of Giving Feedback" seminar for university students (2022).
- Writing Published: CloudWatch Monitoring & Alerting Best Practices — Insider Engineering Blog
- Training Completed AWS Advanced Architecting training and AWS Jam architecture challenges.
- Mentoring Mentor at Mentorink (2025).
Off the stage
Before I ever shipped production code, I performed. I still make things with my hands away from the keyboard.
Four years on international stages with a state folk dance ensemble.
Scuba — where the pager can't reach.
Oud — still chasing the next makam.
Contact
Let's build the right thing
If you are working on something hard, I would like to hear about it.
Advisory & consulting: messaging infrastructure, platform reliability, AI product delivery.
Speaking: system design, engineering leadership, AI code review at scale.
I read every email — expect a reply within two days.