Real-time revolution
Mayank Juneja ’22 MBAi took what he calls a calculated risk. As a member of the first cohort in Northwestern's MBAi Program, a joint-degree program offered between the Kellogg School of Management and the McCormick School of Engineering, Juneja bet on AI’s transformative promise before ChatGPT and other similar platforms brought the technology to the cultural forefront.
That risk has paid off in ways that extend beyond his current role as senior product manager on the streaming AI team at software company Confluent. Juneja is leading the development of groundbreaking technology that could reshape how businesses process data and deploy AI in real-time environments.
”Right now, AI companies are burning money to keep model costs low, so everyone’s building AI features freely,” Juneja said. “But when that subsidization ends, companies will realize they need experts who understand both AI capabilities and production infrastructure.”
Becoming an expert through the MBAi Program
His latest project involves building an AI framework on Apache Flink that goes far beyond traditional chatbots. These AI agents react to streams of system events as they happen, automatically adjusting pricing based on inventory changes or triggering alerts when unusual patterns emerge in financial transactions.
The work represents a fundamental shift in how AI systems operate, moving from reactive to proactive intelligence. It is the kind of innovation that requires both deep technical expertise and strategic business thinking – exactly the combination the MBAi program was designed to cultivate.
Juneja’s path to this cutting-edge work began with his recognition that traditional MBA programs wouldn’t meet his needs. “The MBAi program offered something different,” he said. “It was serious business training combined with real technical AI education.” The joint program between Kellogg and McCormick provided exactly what Juneja sought. The partnership between the two schools convinced him the AI curriculum would have substance, offering both depths of business strategy and technical rigor.
This integrated approach has proven invaluable in his current role, where he regularly presents to senior leadership about product strategy and market positioning. The program gave him credibility to have AI strategy conversations with executives — not just technical discussions. Beyond individual career advancement, Juneja’s work demonstrates the broader career opportunities within AI infrastructure. While much attention has focused on generative AI and large language models, he sees the biggest opportunities in the systems that make AI work in practice.
“The real challenge isn’t building another chatbot. It’s getting the right data to the right model at the right time, at scale,” Juneja said. “You can prototype an AI app in a weekend, but you can’t scale it without deep engineering expertise.” This perspective reflects lessons learned in the MBAi program. Students study technical foundations alongside business strategy, operations, and ethics, developing the holistic understanding necessary to navigate the rapidly evolving AI landscape.
Stimulating career growth
At Confluent, Juneja applies frameworks learned in strategy and microeconomics courses to product decisions, drawing on economic models and competitive analysis techniques when developing pricing strategies. The MBAi program taught him to think beyond individual features and consider broader market dynamics and long-term strategy.
His growth at Confluent has been multifaceted, evolving from building individual features to owning entire product areas. In doing so, Juneja has become a thought leader in the streaming AI space, contributing to and speaking at major industry conferences, including Kafka Summit, Current and Flink Forward.
“Our customer diversity keeps the work fresh and meaningful, whether we are solving real-time fraud detection challenges for banks, optimizing player experiences for gaming companies or enabling breakthrough research at AI labs,” he said. “The MBAi program taught me frameworks for evaluating AI opportunities across different business contexts. This makes me a more versatile product leader who can spot and capitalize on AI applications beyond my immediate expertise.”
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