Code Story episode
S12 Bonus: Skillset Mismatch: Fusing Labor Market Signals with Program Catalogs to Build a Real-Time Economic Intelligence Layer with Sushma Vadlamannati, Founder & CEO of zScale
Jun 11, 2026 · Season 12 · 22 min
The Intelligence Layer of the Job Economy
Sushma Vadlamannati is originally from India, and moved to the states over 25 year ago to pursue her bachelors in at Texas Women's University. She comes from a nontraditional founder background, spending 15 years in the Fortune 100 companies, leading large programs with large budgets. About 5 years ago, she started advising startups and angel investing, which led her into the startup world. Outside of tech, she has 2 daughters and loves to do arts and crafts. In fact, she uses scrap material she finds at home to build miniature scenes and creations.
Sushma is very familiar with the startup scene in Texas. As such, she has a keen understanding of the recurring problems for startups - the local talent pool. In addition to this, she noticed the disconnect between schools, workforce opportunities, and students/workers themselves. She decided to pivot into to building this intelligence layer.
This is the creation story of zScale.
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