Vishak Nag Ashoka

About Vishak Nag Ashoka

Retail media used to be banners and bids. Now it’s AI + systems—a distributed intelligence layer running across phones, browsers, self-checkout lanes, aisle displays, and screens we used to treat like “dumb hardware.”I lead engineering for Ad Experiences at Walmart Global Tech, building AI-augmented omni-channel ad platforms across Walmart’s digital products and physical stores. My org has built and scaled teams across Sponsored Search, Display, Offsite, and In-Store Advertising, shipping experiences across iOS, Android, Web, Self-Checkout, End-of-Aisle Displays, and DOOH—with a relentless focus on performance vitals, customer trust, and measurable business impact.Right now I’m building what I believe is the next frontier: AI-native in-store retail media. We’re developing modern client software + remote monitoring that behaves like a fleet of edge systems, deployed across Windows, Linux, Orange Pi, BrightOS, and Tizen-powered TVs. The goal: infrastructure-grade reliability with AI-informed adaptability—at massive scale, in the messiness of the real world.What fires me up most: digital ads on non-personal screens have historically been a measurement dead zone—lots of “it ran,” not enough “it mattered.” We’re changing that by engineering toward AI-assisted human impressions (not just device pings) and full-loop attribution—closing the loop from what shows on a screen to what happens in the aisle, at checkout, and beyond. When AI helps make non-personal surfaces measurable end-to-end, the store becomes an attributable, optimizable performance channel—not just signage.I’m obsessed with the hard parts that make AI real in production: latency, uptime, hardware diversity, network instability, observability, measurement integrity, and IVT. We build systems that survive chaos and still produce clean signals—because AI is only as good as the truth you feed it. That means inventing new metrics, aligning measurement across canvases, deploying adaptive formats, and turning unconventional surfaces into trustworthy, high-performing ad real estate.Before Walmart, I led AdTech engineering at startups like IGN Entertainment and Polymorph Labs (acquired by Walmart)—playing a pivotal role in engineering the platform that helped drive the startup toward profitability and ultimately exit to Walmart, at the intersection of media, commerce, and technology.North star: build teams that are sharp, kind, and unstoppable—then aim them at problems worthy of their talent. Opportunity isn’t what you’re handed. It’s what you’re willing to imagine—and engineer into existence.

Experience

1. Senior Director of Engineering Omni Retail Media Ad Experiences Walmart Global Tech

   Walmart Global Tech

   Jun 2025 — Present · Sunnyvale, CA, US

   Leading engineering for omnichannel retail media ad experiences across Walmart’s digital and in-store platforms. Driving innovation in Sponsored Search, Display, Offsite, and In-Store Advertising with a focus on performance, scale, and customer relevance.

Education

• Visvesvaraya Technological University

  Bachelor's degree, Computer Science

  2005 — 2009

• University of Southern California

  Master of Science - MS, Computer Graphics

• University of Southern California

  Master of Science (M.S.), Computer Graphics

  2010 — 2011

Skills

• Javascript
• Html 5
• Ios Development
• Subversion
• C
• Html5
• Jquery
• Web Applications
• Ajax
• C#
• Rest
• Php
• Cascading Style Sheets (Css)
• C++ Language
• Zend Framework
• Opengl
• Java
• Ruby
• Mobile Devices
• Objective-C
• Perl
• Git
• Visual Studio
• User Experience
• Ruby on Rails
• Mobile Applications
• C++
• Sql
• Json
• Css
• Python