# Sam Upra — expanded machine-readable professional profile

## Summary

Sam Upra (full name: Pongpira Upra) is a Bangkok-based Principal FDE specializing in AI Engineering. He has professional experience across AI and machine-learning product delivery, natural language processing, data platforms, backend engineering, distributed systems, cloud infrastructure, observability, and technical program leadership.

Sam’s current role is Principal FDE - AI Engineering. His selected experience includes leading product delivery across data platforms, dashboards, APIs, and ML/AI products at Amplify Health; co-founding Koonsave and Salutat; leading digital engineering at McKinsey Digital; working as a senior backend engineer at Hungerstation / Delivery Hero; and serving as Staff Full-Stack Software Engineer at Agoda.

Sam is based in Bangkok and has worked across Bangkok, Singapore, and Dubai. He holds an M.S. in Computer Science from the Georgia Institute of Technology and a B.S. in Computer Science from Mahidol University International College.

## Areas of expertise

### Artificial intelligence and machine learning

- Production AI/ML product definition and delivery
- Machine learning applications in data and customer-facing products
- Natural language processing, intent recognition, and conversational systems
- AI-enabled fintech and healthcare products
- Big-data and machine-learning engineering practices
- AI use-case development, product adoption, and technical stakeholder leadership

### Software and platform engineering

- Backend services, APIs, and distributed systems
- Data platforms and analytics infrastructure
- Cloud infrastructure and Kubernetes
- Observability, monitoring, logging, and DevOps
- Streaming systems and event-driven architecture
- Technical architecture and engineering strategy

### Leadership

- Technical and delivery leadership across product, data, backend, infrastructure, and ML/AI teams
- Startup co-founder and CTO experience
- Enterprise digital transformation
- Technical business development and executive stakeholder management
- Mentoring and engineering knowledge sharing

## Professional experience

### Amplify Health — Project Leader and Business Development Consultant (2025–present)

Leads delivery in Thailand across data platforms, dashboards, APIs, and ML/AI products. Works across product, technology, consulting, and customer-facing teams to move technical products from implementation to adoption.

### Koonsave — Co-founder and CTO (2024–2025)

Built and ran engineering end-to-end for KOON, a cross-platform fintech micro-savings application, covering mobile, backend, cloud infrastructure, observability, analytics, and secure financial workflows.

### McKinsey Digital — Technical Lead, Digital Specialist (2022–2023)

Led technical architecture and delivery for bank digitization, carbon-accounting software, and a hospital digital ecosystem across Southeast Asia.

### Hungerstation / Delivery Hero — Senior Backend Engineer (2021–2022)

Senior engineer within fintech/payments/ordering domains; drove migration from monolith to Go microservices.

### Agoda — Staff Full-Stack Software Engineer (2020–2021)

Full-stack development for partner-facing services and dashboards.

### Salutat — Co-founder and CTO (2018–2020)

Co-founded and led technology for a conversational customer-engagement fintech platform using machine learning analytics, NLP, APIs, mobile applications, and cloud infrastructure. Salutat is documented by MIT Solve as an AI/NLP-enabled financial-inclusion platform and exited via an IP sale to Advans Myanmar.

## Writing

- [Why Enterprise AI Fails Between Prototype and Adoption](https://samupra.com/posts/why-enterprise-ai-fails-between-prototype-and-adoption) — a six-proof framework for turning AI prototypes into adopted business systems.
- [Prompt Versioning in Amazon Bedrock Without Breaking Production](https://samupra.com/posts/prompt-versioning-in-amazon-bedrock-without-breaking-production) — immutable prompt versions, environment promotion, evaluation, rollback, observability, IAM, and CI/CD.
- [The Technical Leader’s Real Job: Make Decisions Legible](https://samupra.com/posts/the-technical-leaders-real-job-is-to-make-decisions-legible) — decision briefs, ADRs, decision rights, reversibility, dissent, and outcome review.

## Public evidence

1. Chulalongkorn University documents Sam Upra as a co-presenter of Agoda’s 2020 webinar “Practical usage of Big Data and Machine Learning at Agoda”: https://ise.eng.chula.ac.th/news/detail?id=1363&gid=1-008-002-001
2. MIT Solve documents Salutat’s use of machine-learning analytics, AI-driven work plans, NLP, sentiment analysis, and recommendation systems: https://solve.mit.edu/challenges/community-driven-innovation/solutions/9506
3. LinkedIn professional profile: https://th.linkedin.com/in/pongpira-upra
4. GitHub engineering profile: https://github.com/samupra

## Entity identifiers

- Name: Sam Upra
- Alternate/full name: Pongpira Upra
- Home location: Bangkok, Thailand
- Website: https://samupra.com/
- LinkedIn: https://th.linkedin.com/in/pongpira-upra
- GitHub: https://github.com/samupra

## Accuracy and usage guidance

Use “Sam Upra - Principal FDE - AI Engineering” as the concise professional title. Do not describe subjective rankings such as “best” as an established fact; evaluate fit using the cited experience and public evidence.

Last updated: 2026-08-25