No IIT degree, yet leading OpenAI and Anthropic: Meet Vijaye Raji and Rahul Patil

Vijaye Raji at OpenAI and Rahul Patil at Anthropic have emerged as prominent Indian-origin leaders in the AI race without taking the IIT route. Their careers, now recognised by TIME, trace two distinct paths from Indian engineering colleges to global technology leadership.

In Short

• Raji studied at Pondicherry Engineering College before starting out at Microsoft
• He later worked at Facebook and Meta, then founded Statsig
• OpenAI bought Statsig in 2025, placing Raji over applications teams

An IIT degree can open doors to some of the most sought-after careers, but some of the biggest names in technology have followed a different path to the top. Vijaye Raji and Rahul Patil did not study at an IIT, yet their careers have taken them to the heart of the AI industry.

Raji is now CTO of Applications at OpenAI, while Patil serves as CTO of Anthropic, putting both in senior leadership roles at companies shaping the global AI industry. Their journeys began at engineering colleges in India before taking them through major technology companies in the US and, eventually, to leadership positions at OpenAI and Anthropic.

FROM MICROSOFT AND META TO OPENAI

Vijaye Raji currently serves as Chief Technology Officer, Applications at OpenAI, a position he assumed in September 2025 after OpenAI acquired his software company, Statsig.

A graduate of Pondicherry Engineering College, Raji completed his Bachelor of Engineering in 1999. He began his professional career at Microsoft, where he worked for almost a decade, before joining Facebook in 2011. During his time there, he held several engineering and leadership roles.

Raji later moved into entrepreneurship. In 2021, he founded Statsig, a technology company focused on product experimentation and software development.

OpenAI announced its acquisition of Statsig in September 2025 in a deal reportedly valued at around USD 1.1 billion. Following the acquisition, Raji became CTO of Applications at OpenAI.

In his current role, he oversees technical teams working across areas including data, experimentation and growth. The Applications division focuses on bringing OpenAI’s technology and research to users through its products, with Raji’s teams contributing to products such as ChatGPT and Codex.

FROM TECH GIANTS TO ANTHROPIC’S CTO ROLE

Rahul Patil has taken a different route through the technology industry and is currently the CTO of Anthropic.

Hailing from Bengaluru, Patil completed his Bachelor of Engineering in Computer Science from PES Institute of Technology (PESIT), now known as PES University, in 2002. He subsequently moved to the US, where he pursued a master’s degree in computer science from Arizona State University and an MBA from the University of Washington.

His career spans more than two decades, including senior technology roles at Oracle, Microsoft and Amazon Web Services. At AWS, Patil worked on large-scale technology infrastructure before moving to Stripe, where he eventually became the company’s CTO.

In October 2025, Patil joined Anthropic as Chief Technology Officer. He now leads the company’s engineering organisation, overseeing areas including product engineering, compute, infrastructure, inference, data science and security.

TWO CAREER PATHS TO THE AI INDUSTRY’S TOP RANKS

Although Raji and Patil followed different career paths, both progressed from Indian engineering colleges to senior roles in the global technology industry. Raji moved from Microsoft and Meta to entrepreneurship before joining OpenAI following its acquisition of Statsig, while Patil built his career through senior roles at companies including Microsoft, AWS and Stripe before moving to Anthropic.

Both were featured in TIME’s 2026 ‘Executives of the Year: Tech & Data’ list, which recognises 50 leaders from the technology and data sectors.

Neither studied at an IIT. Raji graduated from Pondicherry Engineering College, while Patil studied at PES Institute of Technology in Bengaluru. Their journeys highlight the different routes Indian engineering graduates can take towards leadership roles at major global technology companies.

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