# Amandeep Khurana

> Amandeep Khurana is the co-founder and original CEO of Okera, the enterprise data access and governance company acquired by Databricks in 2023. A computer science graduate of UC Santa Cruz and co-author of HBase in Action, he worked at AWS and Cloudera, later became a founding product manager for Kiro and worked on Amazon Bedrock AgentCore, and now leads forward deployed engineering at Anthropic. He also advises founders and writes about career decisions and company building.

- **Role:** Member of Technical Staff, leading Forward Deployed Engineering at Anthropic
- **Organizations:** Anthropic, Amazon Web Services, Okera, Cloudera, Cisco, Founders Network
- **From:** New Delhi, India
- **Education:** MS in Computer Science, University of California, Santa Cruz, Bachelor’s degree in engineering, Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology
- **Known for:** Co-founded Okera, acquired by Databricks in 2023., Led Okera as its original CEO; its 2018 public launch announced $14.6 million in funding and Capital One as a customer., Co-authored HBase in Action, published by Manning in November 2012.

## Career timeline

- **—** — Moved from India to the United States for graduate study; worked part-time as a graduate researcher at Cisco.
- **2010-2011** — Software development engineer on the AWS Elastic MapReduce team.
- **2012** — Co-authored HBase in Action with Nicholas Dimiduk, published by Manning in November; worked as a solutions architect at Cloudera.
- **2016** — Co-founded Cerebro Data, later renamed Okera, with Nong Li; became original CEO.
- **2018** — Okera launched publicly with $14.6 million in total funding, including a $12 million Series A, and Capital One as a named customer.
- **2020** — Appeared on The Entrepreneur Ethos and discussed customer problem-solving, feedback and entrepreneurship; helped with the San Francisco chapter of Founders Network.
- **2023** — Databricks announced acquisition of Okera on May 3; Nong Li was CEO at the time.
- **—** — Returned to AWS in product leadership, including founding PM work for Kiro and agent optimization work in Amazon Bedrock AgentCore.
- **2026** — Publicly identifies as an Anthropic Member of Technical Staff leading Forward Deployed Engineering.

## Achievements

- Co-founded Okera, acquired by Databricks in 2023.
- Led Okera as its original CEO; its 2018 public launch announced $14.6 million in funding and Capital One as a customer.
- Co-authored HBase in Action, published by Manning in November 2012.
- Was founding product manager for Kiro at AWS and worked on Amazon Bedrock AgentCore agent optimization capabilities.
- Leads Forward Deployed Engineering at Anthropic.

## Latest updates

- **2026-09** — Appeared on episode 310 of The Product Podcast to discuss forward deployed engineering at Anthropic, hands-on work and career decisions.
- **2026-09** — Published Customers Are Buying Your Future Behavior, revisiting customer relationships at Cloudera and Okera.
- **2026-07** — His personal site’s Now section identifies his work as leading forward deployed engineering at Anthropic.
- **2026-04** — Published Feedback Is a Gift and Lifestyle Inflation Is a Cage.

## Links

- Website: https://www.amandeep.fyi/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amansk/
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/amansk
- GitHub: https://github.com/amansk

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/amandeep-khurana
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-10-23