About Imam Susanto
Forward Deployed Engineer
Staff engineer, doing forward deployed work
I build software with the people who use it. Since 2026 that means working directly with customers and colleagues: learning how their work runs, then shipping software, AI features and agentic workflows into it.
What I do now
I work with brands and agencies on our influencer marketing platform, with internal teams putting AI and agentic workflows into their daily work, and on external clients’ own systems. Most weeks mix scoping, integration work and shipping.
How I got here
I started in 2014 on the front end of Kawaii Beauty Japan, a beauty and lifestyle site. Three months in, its only backend developer left, and I took over the back end too. When C Channel acquired it in 2016, I moved with it. From 2018 I led the group’s influencer marketing platform, Lemon Influencer, which my team built from scratch and launched on the web in 2019, with a PWA and mobile app in 2021; it grew to 70,000 registered creators and 6,000 brands. From 2022 I set how our whole engineering org builds with AI, and from 2025 with agentic workflows, which pulled me toward the customer side of the work.
Working with me
I start by watching how the work is done today. Something small runs in your environment within days, and it grows from real use. I write down what I learn, so what one customer needed can become something every customer gets.
Outside work
I’m exploring what optimisation means now that agents write much of the code: where the time goes, and what is still worth doing by hand. And I play old games on emulators.
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Get in touch
Say hello in the guest book, or find me here: