In a story that is resonating across India’s engineering circles, 33-year-old Ershad Kunnakkadan, a government-school-educated techie from Kerala with a distance-learning degree, has been appointed CEO of Gumroad, a New York-headquartered digital commerce company with more than $100 million in merchandise volume.
Kunnakkadan’s unlikely rise has drawn attention for what it challenges: the belief that global tech leadership is reserved for graduates of top-tier colleges.
Ershad Kunnakkadan: Government school to global tech boardroom
Born into a middle-class family in Kerala, Kunnakkadan studied in a government school before enrolling in a private engineering college. But it wasn’t the campus that shaped him. A second-hand Ubuntu 8.04 CD, given to him by a senior student, pushed him deep into the world of Linux and open-source computing.
He soon began contributing to Malayalam computing projects, picking up scripting, systems and security skills on his own.
College, however, felt increasingly disconnected from the work he wanted to do. After the second year, he dropped out, but promised his family he would complete a degree later. He eventually earned one through distance education from Bharathiar University.
Early break: from intern to trusted engineer
By 2012, Ershad had entered the tech industry as a developer intern, becoming a software engineer within a year. Alongside professional work, he participated in Google Summer of Code and identified security vulnerabilities in platforms like GitHub and Prezi, small but telling signs of his technical depth.
He also remained active in Swathanthra Malayalam Computing, organising workshops and community events in Kerala.
The Gumroad journey: reliability over résumé
Kunnakkadan joined Gumroad in 2020 as a consultant and later moved into a senior engineering role. His work focused on the backbone of the platform, infrastructure, payouts, scalability and security, helping Gumroad handle more than $1 billion in creator earnings.
Over the years, he became the person the team depended on for what his colleagues described as the “boring but crucial stuff.”
He eventually moved to the US on an O-1 visa, which is granted to individuals with extraordinary ability or achievement.
The unexpected CEO
When founder Sahil Lavingia stepped back from the CEO role, Kunnakkadan emerged as the natural successor after earning the trust of the team and board.
According to a viral LinkedIn thread summarising his journey, when asked what mattered most, Ershad reportedly pointed to one word: reliability.
At 33, he now oversees a platform that has crossed $100 million in gross merchandise volume.
Kunnakkadan’s appointment has struck a chord across social media because it sidesteps conventional metrics of success. A distance degree, no elite engineering college and no aggressive personal brand-building, yet a global CEO role.
At a time when young Indians often feel boxed in by college rankings, his trajectory suggests a different route: deep hands-on skills, consistent work and contributions to real projects.
His story, as highlighted in the Economic Times profile, is also prompting a rethink of how merit is recognised in the global tech ecosystem.
“Be a good person, and be reliable”
The takeaway from his journey has been summed up simply by those who worked with him:
Be reliable. Do the work. Degrees matter less than consistency.
For thousands of Indian engineering students, especially from non-Tier-1 colleges, Kunnakkadan’s ascent to the corner office of a New York tech company is more than a success story, it is a reminder that talent doesn’t always follow traditional paths.
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