Harsh Pareek is a Senior Machine Learning (ML) Engineer at Prodigal. 

After graduating from IIT Bombay with a B.Tech in Computer Science, he completed his PhD in Computer Science at UT Austin. 

Prior to Prodigal, Harsh worked as a Research Scientist at Meta, solving the thorny Integrity problems that plague the Facebook News Feed. During his time at Meta, Harsh built a number of ML models to identify low quality or harmful content in News Feed, particularly clickbait, engagement bait, and viral misinformation. 

Harsh's research has been published in top-tier ML conferences, such as the Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS), the International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML), and the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence.

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Where are you located?

Mountain View, CA

Why Prodigal?

I was looking for something fast-moving in AI, and Prodigal’s small size and AI-first mindset appealed to me.

The opportunity to work with Shantanu and Sangram was definitely a draw. I knew of them from IIT Bombay and really look up to them.

And I was immediately sold on the vision as soon as I read the impact. I could see very clearly the impact Prodigal’s AI can have on many industries. This technology can be world-changing.

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When I’m not working,you can find me…

…playing video games. I’m really enjoying Factorio right now. It’s a strategy and building game, where you start from nothing - you’re mining coal, and from there you create a factory. There’s exponential growth. You’re automating everything.

I enjoy it because it’s like programming, but in a game. It’s all about resource management.

What would your co-workers be surprised to know about you?‍

I’m really into meditation. I did a 10-day Vipassana meditation retreat and have an active meditation practice.

I started meditating when I was working on my PhD, and found it really helpful for mental clarity. I can tell the difference when I am not meditating regularly.

What’s your favorite Prodigal value?

Definitely radical candor. I’m most comfortable when I can be frank and candid with other people and expect the same from them.

It’s a difficult value, a little risky. But it’s not that you are not tactful, Instead, it is a way of prioritizing communication and that’s part of building a strong team. If radical candor is done well, it can lead to trust and foster a genuine feeling of community.

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Want to work with Harsh and the other humans of Prodigal? We're hiring!

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