Kunal Premkumar

Background

About Kunal Premkumar

Cross-functional engineering leader with core specialization in mechatronics, systems engineering, embedded system design & hardware product development. Over the last 13+ years I have delivered over 60 products & solutions for various sectors including automotive, aerospace, consumer electronics, pharma & medical device industries. Joining an erstwhile startup in 2011, I grew from an intern to head of engineering within just 4 years, playing a pivotal role in transforming it into a profitable business through several individual & collaborative achievements including:* Building our first computer vision product that used specialized illumination to highlight key plastic components in an assembly based on their optical properties (2015)* Writing a US FDA compliant software architecture for Pharma (US FDA CFR 21 Part 11) in 2016 * Designing our first PCB for medical devices and architecting its embedded software in compliance to various regulatory standards (IEC 62304, IEC 60601, ISO 13485, and ISO 14791). This embedded system involved high speed digital circuits, MEMS sensors, low-level communication protocols (I2C, SPI, UART) as well as signal conditioning and related analog circuitry (2020).* Implementing an AI/ML based image classification on a consumer product development project that used a custom-trained TensorFlow lite model deployed on a Linux edge device (2021)* Leading a team to create an application specific electromagnetic sensor for alloy discrimination based on the eddy current principle (2021)* Helping secure the biggest order in company history by spearheading proposal generation & customer engagement activities on a robotic assembly line with in-line inspection * Overseeing the growth of our technical team, both in strength & confidence, through strategic hiring and compassionate mentorship In all, I pride myself in being able to understand complex, multidisciplinary problems and break it down into its core fundamentals and relying on my 'first principles' thinking to come up with simple solutions.