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Sankalp Sharma
Résumé

Founder, Paperwork Labs · San Francisco

Forward-deployed / full-stack AI engineer.

I turn unclear workflows into production software—working from stakeholder discovery through architecture, implementation, and operations. My current work spans AI agent runtimes, fintech and compliance products, identity, and the automation that ships them.

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Selected engineering evidence

repository commits
3,700+
FastAPI codebases
7
typed agent personas
17
GitHub workflows
54
tax jurisdictions
51
migrated to Paperwork ID
6 apps · 4 APIs

Selected systems

Six products, one operating substrate.

I built these as connected systems: shared identity, shared data doctrine, reusable backend foundations, and one agent runtime coordinating work across the portfolio.

Portfolio + signals

AxiomFolio

Portfolio intelligence and trading workflows that combine live positions, signals, market context, and risk-aware execution paths.

  • Next.js
  • FastAPI
  • PostgreSQL
  • Redis
  • MCP

Consumer tax

FileFree

Mobile-first tax preparation with W-2 and 1099 OCR, integer-cents calculations, a MeF document lifecycle, and state-tax coverage across all 50 states plus D.C.

  • Next.js
  • FastAPI
  • Python
  • GCP Vision
  • MeF

LLC formation

LaunchFree

LLC-formation workflow with deterministic state-portal handlers under certification, compliance dates, and a shared data layer for state rules and fees.

  • Next.js
  • FastAPI
  • Playwright
  • PostgreSQL
  • MCP

B2B compliance

Distill

B2B compliance product in development: a CPA-facing dashboard plus firm-scoped tax API routes for structured document workflows.

  • Next.js
  • FastAPI
  • Firm-scoped APIs
  • Paperwork ID

Company OS

Studio

Founder command center for products, agents, conversations, secrets, infrastructure, and operating decisions.

  • Next.js
  • TypeScript
  • Paperwork ID
  • Vercel

Agent runtime

Brain

Cross-product agent runtime for persona routing, memory, tool use, scheduled work, and dispatch.

  • Python
  • FastAPI
  • SQLAlchemy
  • PostgreSQL
  • Redis
  • MCP

Architecture under constraints

The systems behind the products.

Three projects show how I approach durable engineering: make policy executable, automate the path to production, and migrate critical infrastructure without losing control of the rollback.

Agent runtime

Policy, memory, and tools—not another chat wrapper.

Brain is the orchestration layer behind the portfolio. It routes work through typed persona contracts, enforces model and cost policy before provider spend, stores episodic and procedural memory, schedules recurring work, and exposes product capabilities through MCP. Studio provides the human control plane.

  • FastAPI
  • SQLAlchemy
  • Neon
  • Upstash
  • MCP
  • 17 typed persona contracts define model choice, escalation, cost ceilings, tool routing, and human-review flags.
  • Episodic and procedural memory plus provenance URIs make outputs traceable.
  • APScheduler, HTTP, and MCP connect recurring work, product tools, and the Studio control plane.

Delivery automation

A production path designed to drain its own queue safely.

The monorepo’s PR pipeline treats draft and ready state as a cost-control signal, gives PR Desk a capped mechanical-repair budget, binds AI review to the exact commit SHA, and merges agent work only when labels, reviews, checks, mergeability, and branch protection agree. Post-merge automation rebuilds derived indexes, while previews remain path-scoped.

  • GitHub Actions
  • Python
  • TypeScript
  • Hetzner
  • Vercel
  • 54 versioned workflows cover CI, review, triage, repair, rebase, merge, deployment, smoke tests, and system health.
  • Review verdicts fail closed and are bound to the exact pull-request head SHA.
  • Draft mode limits expensive CI; ready-for-review intentionally turns the full gate set on.

Identity migration

A staged identity cutover across ten surfaces.

I replaced Clerk with self-hosted Better-Auth across six frontend apps and four FastAPI backends while preserving each product’s sign-in experience. Paperwork ID centralizes users and sessions at accounts.paperworklabs.com, exchanges short-lived one-time handoff tokens for apex-scoped EdDSA JWTs, and lets backends verify them through JWKS. The greenfield cutover landed in roughly 13 PRs with rollback points between waves.

  • Better-Auth
  • Next.js
  • EdDSA JWT
  • JWKS
  • PostgreSQL
  • One identity host serves product-specific sign-in shells across separate domains.
  • Single-use handoff tokens exchange for product-scoped sessions instead of sharing cross-apex cookies.
  • A staged migration plan preserved rollback points through frontend, backend, and package cutovers.

Before Paperwork Labs

A decade across data platforms and full-stack systems.

The through-line is ownership: understand the operating problem, build the platform around it, and make the result usable by the people doing the work.

  1. Cruise

    2021–2026

    Senior Data Engineer II

    Commercial data platforms across finance, legal, and customer operations.

  2. Credit Karma

    2019–2021

    Senior Data Engineer

    Recommendation systems, streaming data, and international compliance pipelines.

  3. Lithium Technologies

    2017–2019

    Full-Stack Engineer

    Enterprise community platforms and server-rendered microservices.

  4. Alpha Technologies

    2014–2017

    Senior Software Engineer

    Real-time device monitoring and Java platform modernization.