Founder Profile

Armen Merikyan

Building agentic solutions and AI systems that turn strategy into working software. Founder and Technical Managing Member of Athena Live, focused on intelligent systems that automate operations and scale decision-making.

Los Angeles Metropolitan Area armenmerikyan@gmail.com (570) 892-LIVE LinkedIn: armen-merikyan-am

Summary

Started building systems at 19 in the late 90s and built a first machine learning application in 2011 (Geo Behavior). Armen is passionate about intelligent systems that learn continuously, adapt through feedback, and drive real-world decisions. The Athena Systems philosophy began in 2002 and evolves today as Athena Live.

“Question everything. Fight like a samurai. Be your own. Dream huge. Charm when you can, cut when you must.”

Athena Live Focus

Armen builds AI-powered platforms that automate operations, integrate with existing infrastructure, turn data into decision advantage, and give small and mid-sized businesses enterprise-level capability.

AI agents and ChatGPT applications Automation platforms Enterprise integration Cloud and DevOps Platform engineering

Athena Live — Founder (Dec 2019 to Present)

Technical Managing Member
Full lifecycle ownership across architecture, development, deployment, and continuous optimization.
  • Defines product vision and technical architecture for AI-driven applications.
  • Builds end-to-end systems across frontend, backend, APIs, databases, and cloud.
  • Leads integrations with CRMs, analytics tools, and enterprise platforms.
  • Deploys ChatGPT-based applications with custom tools and data pipelines.
  • Designs analytics dashboards and decision-support systems.

Career Highlights

Senior System Engineer — The Walt Disney Studios
Dec 2018 to Mar 2019 · Data science infrastructure and platform reliability.
Platform Engineer — Intuit
Mar 2018 to Aug 2018 · CI/CD pipelines, Kubernetes, and DevOps platform engineering.
Senior Enterprise Solutions Architect — Honda of America Mfg., Inc.
Dec 2016 to Oct 2017 · Enterprise architecture and integration systems.
Solutions Architect — Belmont Informatics Group Inc.
Sep 2014 to Sep 2016 · Architecture and delivery for multiple clients.
Application Performance Architect — The Walt Disney Company
Sep 2012 to Sep 2014 · Performance, reliability, and enterprise platforms.
Lead Application Architect — Southern California Edison
Mar 2011 to Jun 2012 · SOA platform design and governance.
Datacenter Migration Architect — Warner Bros. Entertainment
Oct 2010 to Mar 2011 · Integration and migration systems.
Senior Application Developer — Farmers Insurance Group of Companies
Nov 2008 to Oct 2010 · Enterprise application development.
Integration Developer — Toyota North America
Nov 2006 to Nov 2008 · Enterprise integration center of excellence.
Application Developer — Capgemini Consulting
Nov 2004 to Nov 2006 · Enterprise application delivery.
Co-Founder — Athena Systems LLC
Jun 2002 to May 2004 · SaaS order-to-cash platform for legal document services.
Business Analyst — EY
Jun 2000 to May 2002 · Insurance domain requirements and systems.

Core Skills

Enterprise integration (IBM MQ, SOA, DataPower) Cloud and DevOps (AWS, Kubernetes, CI/CD) AI-driven systems and automation Platform engineering and scalability Data platforms and analytics Database systems and architecture

Education

University of Southern California — Business Administration, Management and Operations (September 1997 to May 2000). Bachelor's degree program, not completed.