StepZen is now part of IBM. For the most recent product information and updates go to
https://www.ibm.com/products/stepzen

About StepZen

StepZen is a GraphQL server with a unique architecture. It helps developers build APIs fast and by using declarative configurations they need to write less code. APIs run in an in-memory Golang-based GraphQL engine, deployed in Kubernetes, so the APIs are highly responsive to application needs.

You write a few lines of declarative code, we bring a million lines to do the hard things. Whether backends are REST, databases, or GraphQL, your team can be up and running, delivering a flexible GraphQL layer in days, not weeks or months. Your APIs are concise and declarative and run on StepZen's cloud or your private cloud with built-in performance, cost, & reliability optimizations.

Our Team

Distributed around the globe, StepZen is a team of industry veterans with key contributions to database tech' (Postgres, Db2 & Derby), APIs (Apigee), and cloud-scale deployments (Apigee & Google Kubernetes Engine).

Between us, we have 70+ patents, 100 academic papers in top-tier journals and conferences, 5 PhDs, honorary professorships, an IBM Fellow, and an IBM distinguished engineer. We helped build and scale new products (Db2, Apigee) and were on the leadership team that took Apigee public and later its sale to Google. We are excited to be part of the GraphQL world where app development, data, APIs, and databases so beautifully intersect!

Anant Jhingran

Cofounder & CEO

Anant is StepZen's CEO. Having spent time as IBM Fellow, CTO of IBM’s Information Management Division, CTO of Apigee, and product leader at Google Cloud, Anant has spent his career at the forefront of innovation in databases, ML, and APIs. At StepZen, Anant is enjoying bringing his love of these technologies together to simplify, accelerate and scale front-end development.

Anant Jhingran

Sridhar Rajagopalan

Cofounder & CTO

Sridhar leads Engineering at StepZen. Sridhar was a senior Site Reliability Engineer (SRE) at Google, combining software and systems engineering skills to help build and run large-scale, massively distributed systems. Before that he was a senior engineer and architect at Apigee, and served for two decades as a member of technical staff and architect at IBM.

Sridhar Rajagopalan

Helen Whelan

Cofounder & CBO

Helen led marketing for Apigee helping establish market leadership and build a robust revenue pipeline. She designed and executed the thought leadership programs that helped position Apigee as a category leader for API Management. Helen was a core member of the IPO team and led the integration of marketing to Google Cloud after Apigee's acquisition in 2016. Before Apigee, Helen led developer content & community for Adobe's Flex and Flash products.

Helen Whelan

Herman Camarena

Software Engineer

Herman is a principal software engineer at StepZen and has more than 25 years of experience in tech. Herman was a data scientist and senior software engineer at Google. Before that, he served as CTO at both Spribo and QoS Labs and began his journey in tech in senior roles at Apple, WebMethods and BEA Systems.

Herman Camarena

Bobbie Cochrane

Software Engineer

Bobbie is a senior research scientist with 25+ years of experience at IBM and in the information technology and services industry. She’s a strong research professional skilled in blockchain, scalability, IBM DB2, cloud, computer science, and enterprise software.

Bobbie Cochrane

Dan Debrunner

Software Engineer

Dan is a software engineer at StepZen and was a senior technical staff member (STSM) with IBM's Data Management division and the architect for the Cloudscape database engine. Dan guided Cloudscape from a startup company through deployment in IBM's products and middleware, and ultimately IBM’s contribution of Cloudscape code to Apache as Derby in 2004.

Dan Debrunner

Roy Derks

Developer Products

Roy is a developer advocate, tech speaker, author and entrepreneur. Roy has spent his career designing products and developer experiences with GraphQL, React, React Native, JavaScript, TypeScript, Data Analytics, and more.

Roy Derks

Carlos Eberhardt

Customer Success

Carlos has been working with internet technologies since the early 1990s. From Fortune 50 enterprises to small startups, he's worked across a variety of industries. He lives in Minnesota with is wife, three daughters, three cats, two dogs, two hamsters, a turtle, and some fish. When he's not buying pet food, he has fun at StepZen, trying to solve problems.

Carlos Eberhardt

Johannes Eriksson

Developer

Johannes has worked with developer tools and APIs since the early 2000s. He has been involved in the development of a wide range of software solutions, from specialized program analysizers to enterprise UI libraries. He is a fan of open source, functional-reactive programming and first principles thinking.

Johannes Eriksson

Samuel Hill

Developer

Starting his career as a digital marketer, Samuel Hill discovered a path to web development that quickly blossomed into an in-depth passion for software. At StepZen, Sam enjoys being at the cutting-edge of data sourcing for front-end and API developers.

Samuel Hill

Charlie Kim

Software Engineer

Charlie worked on SaaS before it was known as SaaS. He has extensive experience on systems from mail and messaging, to web site measurement, to instant messaging security proxies, to bioinformatics pipelines and APIs - in roles varying from head of engineering and operations, engineer, and architect primarily in startups.

Charlie Kim

Viktor Lukashov

Developer

After 15+ years as engineer, architect, product manager and trainer Viktor is now building the next generation of developer tools for the StepZen GraphQL platform. When his passion for tech lets him go, you'll find Viktor chasing another passion - rock climbing.

Viktor Lukashov

Investors and Board Members

We're thrilled to be supported by investors and board members from a wide variety of backgrounds and with stellar track records building value.

Swaroop 'Kittu' Kolluri

Neotribe Ventures

I fell in love with the non-obvious insights that StepZen had--APIs can intelligently wire themselves across multiple backends, using machine learning and database techniques. That, plus a great team, made Neotribe’s investment totally obvious!

Swaroop 'Kittu' Kolluri

Peter Wagner

Wing Venture Capital

I love the way StepZen uses complex technology to simplify. Powerful intelligence is put to work “behind the scenes” to simplify, accelerate and scale front-end development. StepZen’s unified backend has the potential to unleash a new wave of developer creativity.

Peter Wagner

Chet Kapoor

CEO DataStax

I love the mission to speed up and massively simplify app development. I believe StepZen has the product vision that'll crack the code on the problem of orchestrating the complex data developers need to build today's most engaging user experiences.

Chet Kapoor

Advisors

With years of experience in technology, various industries, and the market we are grateful for the advice, the sounding board, and so much more from these awesome folks.

Alex Salazar

Partner, Neotribe Ventures

I became an advisor to StepZen because I believe in their vision: Building software is too hard. There are not enough developers to meet demand. Connecting to disparate systems is painful. Building out custom workflows and APIs waste scarce developer time. I believe that StepZen has the team and product to solve this problem.

Alex Salazar

Oliver Dore

Partner, Technology at Work & Co

It is increasingly common for technical architectures to require combining, shaping, and caching data from various sources - and a flexible API to support a multi-channel strategy by default. I believe StepZen can solve a real and pressing need for developers - radically reducing the burden of aggregating data, and instead focus on delivering great user experiences.

Oliver Dore

Randall Degges

Head of Developer Relations & Community, Snyk

There are few things more complicated for a developer than integrating with third-party services. I love working with the StepZen team because they're making every developer's life far simpler and more enjoyable, and that's something I care deeply about.

Randall Degges

Joonas Lehtinen

Co-founder, Vaadin

My passion is simplifying the developer experience. When things just work as expected due to a framework or a platform taking care of low-level details, developers can enjoy an uninterrupted flow and increased productivity. I believe StepZen can drastically simplify Jamstack by turning everything GraphQL and taking friction out of building on it in enterprises.

Joonas Lehtinen

Join the StepZen Team

Passionate about building cutting edge tools for developers? Interested in joining our team as our next frontend developer, full-stack engineer, developer advocate, technical writer, or digital marketer?

Get in Touch