Sahand Kashani

Hardware engineer, Seoul

Sahand Kashani joined MangoBoost’s Seoul office in late 2023 as a Hardware Engineer. Before joining, he was a graduate student at EPFL in Switzerland where he worked on reconfigurable systems and on hardware-accelerated parallel RTL simulators. As part of the architecture team, he works on FPGA data movement infrastructure that will be used at the core of future MangoBoost products.  He also helps pass on his low-level FPGA optimization knowledge to the other MangoBoost architects.

Joining a startup is exciting as it gives one the opportunity to contribute in the early stages and help steer design decisions that will make a large impact on the long-run.

Why did you decide to join MangoBoost?

It is an exciting time to be in the hardware space again: After years of CPU performance stagnation, the computing industry has largely embraced hardware acceleration as the means to support the increasing requirements of modern applications. DPUs are one of the key enablers of this acceleration era. Their development requires working at the intersection of multiple areas (networking, storage, virtualization, etc.) in which MangoBoost’s architects are experts. The opportunity to work alongside a talented team and learn from their expertise, while contributing my own FPGA knowledge, is the main thing that drew me to join MangoBoost. My interactions with the leadership and engineering teams was also one of the most pleasant ones to date, which made my decision to join much simpler.

What do you enjoy most about your current role?

I most enjoy the responsibility and autonomy that MangoBoost’s leadership entrusts with its engineers to take ownership of a new project and lead it to completion, even when one is unfamiliar with the specifics at first. This is perhaps the most unexpected thing when I first joined, but has led to much growth since then.

Why is this an exciting time to join the team?

Most things are learned through experience. Joining a startup is exciting as it gives one the opportunity to contribute in the early stages and help steer design decisions that will make a large impact on the long-run. This is a rare learning experience that is difficult to obtain in a large established company where projects are likely already ongoing since multiple years (unless you joined at exactly the right time).

How was adjusting to life in Seoul, South Korea?

Aside from the language barrier (on which I am working!), adjusting to life in Seoul has been easier than expected. The other MangoBoosters gave me invaluable help in the first 2 months to settle in and handle all administrative tasks. Once you understand how things work and get into the South Korean digital ecosystem, everything becomes very efficient here. Having amazing food definitely helps with the adjustment: I highly recommend jajangmyeon (black-bean paste noodles)!