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Join us to build the future of human interaction
One of our core beliefs at Beyond Presence is that great people build great products. We are people-first and one of our key motivations is to create the kind of workplace we’ve always dreamed of ourselves. We embrace a value-driven culture that encourages growth, both professionally and personally. This philosophy shapes how we operate at work and enriches our lives beyond the office.
Our Values
Built on Strong Beliefs
Pursue Excellence
We never settle for the status quo and we have very high expectations of ourselves. We refuse to accept mediocrity and push our boundaries to achieve true excellence in what matters.
Take Ownership
We value proactive ownership and empower each other to embrace the bigger picture, take charge, and create impact beyond immediate tasks. We give each other the freedom to apply our talents to the fullest.
Focus on Impact
We are outcome-focused and data-driven. We make time to prioritize and define clear goals so we can hyper-focus on the tasks that create the highest impact for the company as a whole.
Move Fast
We have a bias toward action and continuously work on speeding up our highest-priority initiatives. We find the leanest way to quickly measure impact and derive data-driven answers.
Learn and Grow
We approach the world with humility and curiosity, always eager to learn and improve, and never afraid of failure. We celebrate risk-taking, and we view failures as part of the path to long-term growth.
Empower Others
We proactively enable, support, and motivate others to become the best versions of themselves. We are open-minded, challenge each other respectfully, and give candid and constructive feedback.
Our Team
Founders
Awais Shafique
Co-Founder & CEO
• Founder/CPO at presize.ai (acquired by Meta 2022)
• Advisor/Angel investor & Forbes 30u30
• Serial entrepreneur (3rd startup)
• Sr. PM at Meta
• MS. Biomedical computing at TUM & Tech Management at CDTM
Felix Altenberger
Co-Founder & CTO
• MLE Lead at presize.ai (acquired by Meta 2022)
• Open-source MLOps code author at ZenML
• 3D AI PhD at TUM w/ Prof. Niessner
• 2x Master Degrees (Data Engineering, Management) at TUM, among top 5%
Research
Prof. Gerard Pons-Moll
Research Advisor
• Global authority on digital humans
• Head of Real Virtual Humans lab at the University of Tübingen
• Core Faculty at the Tübingen AI Center
Dr. Christian Diller
Research Scientist
• PhD in 3D Human Animation from TUM (3D AI Lab w/ Prof. Angela Dai)
• 3D AI research at Meta Reality Labs
• Top-tier publications on 3D reconstruction and animation at CVPR
Dr. Shivangi Aneja
Research Scientist
• PhD in 3D Facial Avatars from Visual Computing, TUM (w/ Prof. Matthias Niessner)
• 3D Avatar Research at Digital Humans Group, Disney Zurich
• Top-tier computer vision/graphics publications at SIGGRAPH, CVPR, ICCV & ECCV
Dr. Karthik Shetty
Research Scientist
• PhD in Pattern Recognition at FAU (w/ Prof. Maier)
• Top-tier publications on human body reconstruction
• Expert in inference & low-level optimization
Sricharan “Sri” Chiruvolu
Sr. Research Engineer/ Lead
• 7+ years in 3D computer vision & digital human/avatar systems
• Expert in multimodal animation, 3D reconstruction & scalable data products
• Early team member at Meshcapade (Inventors of SMPL), Colossyan (AI avatars), and Zomato (IPO, $3.9B)
Rachmadio Lazuardi
Research Engineer - Human Avatars
• 5 year MLE industry experience in various startups in Japan
• Currently writing his thesis on 3D hair reconstruction in collaboration with TUM
Product & Engineering
Dr. April Bachhuber
Sr. Product Manager & UX Researcher
• PhD & post doc in Psychology
• Senior UXR at presize.ai & Turnitin
• CDTM Fall 2014
Lucas Jacobson
Sr. Backend Engineer
• Backend lead at presize.ai & Drops (both acquired)
• Co-founder & CTO at Koyos and HIGGS Live (Video Streaming platform)
M Shehroz Sajjad
Sr. Full-stack Engineer
• 8+ years of full-stack experience
• 3x co-founder & master’s degree in entrepreneurship
René Filip
Sr. Backend Engineer
• Sr. backend engineer at presize.ai
• Head of engineering at Sizekick
Nicola De Angeli
Sr. MLE
• 4+ years MLE experience at Morphic and Bending Spoons
• Optimized ML platforms with >100M users and >$100K daily compute cost
Anna Tyrkich
Design Lead
• 10+ years in Product Design
• M. Sc. in Innovation Management & Entrepreneurship at TUB
• Founder @a.t.
GTM, Marketing, OPS
Raj Prabagaran
Sales & GTM Lead
• Leads sales and GTM efforts, focusing on customer acquisition and revenue growth.
• 15+ years of experience EMEA Sale.
Saniya Vardak
Marketing lead
• Growth marketer with 9+ years of experience scaling B2B and B2C brands globally
• Lead EMEA marketing at Deel, Wise, Wolt, Muzz
Ege Yaygin
Founder´s Associate
• Co-Founder at Maturaid (EdTech) & Duruj (E-Commerce)
• Business Development at Amazon
• Taskforce Lead at TUM.ai (Germany’s leading student initiative around AI)
Shah Rukh Qureshi
Manager - HR & Operations
• 10+ years of experience in HR, operations, culture, and people strategy
• Holds 3 master’s degrees and 10+ international certifications, and won 5+ major awards