mentor profile
Erik Rothman is a hands-on technical leader specializing in building data systems that work outside of ideal conditions.
As Co-founder and Principal Engineer at Gigasheet, he is responsible for system architecture and core product development, building a data-intensive SaaS platform from the ground up.
Before founding Gigasheet, Erik spent over a decade building and operating large-scale systems across multiple industries.
At Nordea, one of Northern Europe’s largest banks, he served as Head of Machine Learning Engineering, managing teams of engineers and working at a senior level across the organization. His focus was not on building models, but on making systems actually work in production. This meant aligning engineering, data science, and business teams, navigating organizational constraints, and ensuring solutions could be deployed reliably within a complex, regulated environment.
He was part of senior management discussions and contributed to decisions around architecture, infrastructure, and data strategy, while also driving initiatives with impact across the broader organization.
Earlier in his career, Erik built:
- Real-time systems serving millions of users at BBC Music
- Large-scale data ingestion platforms processing 500,000+ sources daily at Recorded Future
- High-concurrency systems handling massive transaction volumes at Ovo Energy
He has also built and sold software systems used by companies across multiple countries.
Erik’s edge is simple: he understands why systems fail in production and how to prevent it. He helps teams avoid costly architectural mistakes, cut through complexity, and build systems that scale both technically and organizationally.
- Co-founded Gigasheet, building a data-intensive SaaS platform from scratch
- Led ML engineering teams at Nordea and enabled production deployment of data-driven systems in a regulated banking environment
- Built data infrastructure handling millions of transactions per second at Ovo Energy
- Architected backend systems serving millions of users for BBC Music applications
- Developed large-scale ingestion systems processing 500,000+ daily sources at Recorded Future
- Built and sold ecommerce systems used by companies across multiple countries
- Led and mentored engineering teams across startup and enterprise environments
- A technical founder building a data-heavy product and need to get the architecture right early
- A CTO or engineering leader dealing with scaling issues, technical debt, or production instability
- Operating in a complex or regulated environment where systems can’t fail
- Moving from “it works” to “it works reliably under load”
- An engineer stepping into leadership while still owning critical technical decisions
This is particularly valuable if:
- Your system works in development but breaks under real-world conditions
- You’re making architecture decisions that will be expensive to undo later
- Enterprise customers are questioning your scalability, security, or reliability
- Your team is slowing down due to unclear ownership or technical bottlenecks
- You need to make high-stakes technical decisions with incomplete information
Technical Architecture Review - Deep dive into your system. Identify scaling risks, bottlenecks, and decisions that will create future constraints.
Production Readiness & Scaling - Move from prototype to reliable production systems. Focus on performance, stability, and real-world usage.
Engineering Leadership Advisory - Support for founders and engineering leaders making high-impact technical and organizational decisions.
Ongoing Technical Advisory - For teams that need a senior engineer’s perspective on critical decisions without hiring full-time.
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