Derek Sessions

Chief Technology Officer @ Yoodli AI Roleplays

About

I lead engineering at Yoodli, where we’re building AI technology that helps people improve through realistic, interactive practice. Our AI roleplay platform gives professionals a safe environment to prepare for high-stakes conversations while giving managers time back to focus on coaching and leadership. Since our Series A, we’ve seen more than 50% growth in usage and customer expansion across GTM, leadership, and enablement teams. With our recent $40M Series B, we’re accelerating development across AI, video, and large-scale conversational systems. Previously, I spent more than seven years at Panopto as Engineering Manager for Video, leading teams across creation, analytics, and cloud operations. Prior to that, I worked at Microsoft as a Senior Software Development Engineer focused on WARP (Windows Advanced Rasterization Platform). I’m proud to help shape a team committed to technical rigor, thoughtful innovation, and meaningful impact. We’re hiring! Check out: yoodli.ai/careers

Country

United States

City

Seattle

Industry

Computer Software

Skill

Engineering Leadership, Software Architecture, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Cloud Computing, Product Development

Experience

Chief Technology Officer

Yoodli AI Roleplays

2023-2 - Present · 3 yrs 8 mos

Seattle, Washington, United States

At Yoodli, we're building technology to help people improve their communication skills in a judgement free environment. Yoodli provides you AI powered feedback on your filler words, pacing, body language, and much more - try Yoodli during your everyday meetings with our Zoom integration or use it to ace your next interview, presentation or speech. Our users range from world champions of public speaking to TEDx coaches, corporate professionals, and college students preparing for their first interview.

On Sabbatical

2022-10 - 2023-2 · 5 mos

Engineering Manager, Video

Panopto

2019-12 - 2022-10 · 2 yrs 11 mos

Managed the Video organization of multiple teams, including team leads and principal engineers. Scope included all video (creation/editing/consumption), analytics, and cloud operations. Responsible for hiring, people management, roadmap planning, project oversight, product management, and operational tasks. Ran multiple cross organizational efforts and set organizational standards for project and people management.

Principal Technical Lead, Media

Panopto

2019-1 - 2019-12 · 1 yr

Greater Seattle Area

60% IC, 40% manager role for a team of 3 reports. Scope included video creation and processing, recording clients, and customer conversions. Led teams in multiple successful business critical efforts around webcasting stability and scalability.

Senior Technical Lead, Media

Panopto

2016-9 - 2019-1 · 2 yrs 5 mos

60% IC, 40% manager role for a team of 2 reports. Scope included video creation and processing, recording clients, and customer conversions. Designed and built the technical strategy and platform for 3rd party Remote Recorder integrations. Built the RTMP ingestion service. Managed and contributed to the delivery a modernized video encoding engine.