Mate Papava

Mate Papava

I'm a software engineer based in Tbilisi, Georgia. I've spent the last few years building products that sit at the intersection of AI and real product problems-co-founding stamo.ai, where we went from a blank repo to a platform that generates branded AR effects autonomously for paying clients, and joining Cosmio AI as the first engineer, where I owned the product end to end from day one.

The work I find most interesting is the kind where the answer isn't obvious-agent infrastructure, multi-step pipelines, systems that need to actually hold up in production. I work across the stack: Next.js and TypeScript on the frontend, Python and FastAPI on the backend, AWS and GCP for infrastructure.

When I'm not writing code I'm usually reading-fantasy, sci-fi, Japanese modern literature, mythology. My music taste runs from jazz to Kendrick to Japanese city pop depending on the hour.

Timeline

2024–Present-Cosmio AI · Founding Engineer

  • First engineer after the founding team-scoped and built the product from the ground up.
  • Full-stack ownership across frontend (Next.js, TypeScript) and backend (Python, FastAPI).
  • Built AI agent infrastructure: multi-agent orchestration, tool-calling, RAG pipelines.
  • Cloud infrastructure on AWS (ECS, RDS, SQS, Bedrock) and GCP (Cloud Run, Vertex AI, VPC).

2023–Present-stamo.ai · CTO & Co-founder

  • Co-founded an AI startup-started with marketing video generation on Google/Vertex AI infrastructure, then pivoted.
  • Pivoted to AR effects for brands: an agentic platform that researches a brand's identity, suggests templates, and generates custom face-tracking AR filters autonomously.
  • Effects publish directly to TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, and web-organic reach through user-generated content, no ad spend.
  • Built the agentic workflow end-to-end: brand analysis → template suggestion → AR filter generation, all in one autonomous pipeline.
  • Selected among 500+ startups from 27 countries-accelerator program, Washington DC → San Francisco.
  • Delivered for paying clients including PSP Pharmacy.

2022–2023-OPPA · Software Developer

  • Full-stack development with Next.js, TypeScript, Node.js.
  • Built and maintained component libraries, NX monorepo setup.
  • Mentored students in Python at DreamsCreator Academy and Skillwill.

2021-Bank of Georgia · Internship (Oracle Developer)

  • Oracle DB development, SQL, data modeling.
  • First real exposure to production-grade data infrastructure.

2020-EPAM · Python Internship

  • Python fundamentals, Git, Scrum.
  • Enrolled in Computer Science at International Black Sea University.

2018

  • print("hello world")-Python. It compiled. I was hooked.