Ali Raza

AI developer building in public · Open source advocate · Fractional CTO · Founder @ Boostpanda AI

Istanbul, Türkiye

Summary

I build AI products and ship them. 15 years of engineering experience across startups, nonprofits, and consulting. Currently based in Istanbul. I take on fractional CTO engagements and AI consulting for teams that need someone who’s actually built things. Before all this: Code for Pakistan, civic tech, open data advocacy.

Experience

BoostPanda AI — Co-Founder

July 2023 – Present · Delaware, United States

Refactored prompt structures to resolve hallucination issues using Python and advanced NLP techniques, improving response accuracy by 40% and reducing manual intervention by 20%
Developed a Python-based exceptions agent leveraging DSPy to validate outgoing emails for missing calendar attachments and formatting errors, reducing email errors by 90% and saving 15+ hours/week
Built an email scoring agent using Python, BootstrapFewShot, and Slack API to evaluate email quality on a 5-point scale, improving response rates by 25%
Migrated legacy Laravel-based prompts for scheduling, client replies, and task automation to a Python DSPy agentic framework, increasing system scalability by 50% and reducing prompt execution times by 30%

Travel Resorts of America — Director of Engineering

March 2016 – Present · North Carolina, United States

Designed and deployed a Generative AI-powered call analytics platform using OpenAI Whisper API and GPT-4, reducing QA efforts by 80%
Built a scalable CRM system using Angular and Python, enabling seamless operations for 4M+ prospects and 20K members
Developed an AI-powered campaign management platform using OpenAI, Twilio, and SendGrid to automate campaign workflows, enhancing targeting accuracy and reducing manual effort
Created and deployed a regression model with scikit-learn to predict membership defaults using historical payment data, cutting financial risk by 20%
Led development of a marketing platform using Python and Kafka, processing 10,000+ SMS and emails daily, boosting lead conversion rates by 28%
Developed a demographic extraction tool using Google Vision AI and GPT-4 Mini, saving 10+ minutes per sale and streamlining 200+ daily entries (1,200+ hours annually)
Designed a microservice using Python and pandas to manage tour slots and prevent overbooking, reducing no-tour rates by 40%
Built payus, a payment collection platform using Authorize.net that has collected over $2 Million in maintenance fees

Code for Pakistan — Sr. Principal Technologist

April 2020 – December 2025 · Islamabad, Pakistan

Led development and implementation of civic tech projects, improving government service delivery and citizen engagement
Built Pehchan, a secure identity platform for citizen logins to government services (akin to Google/GitHub SSO)
Designed and built Numainda, a chatbot using Next.js, PGVector, and GPT-4o to educate users on the constitution and election laws
Developed and deployed KarachiChal.com, an AI-powered itinerary planning tool serving 100+ users
Created Civic Issue Finder, empowering 200+ individuals to identify and address civic issues
Built Watchtower, a monitoring portal for government website performance and accountability

RevReply — Sr. AI Engineer

September 2024 – January 2025

Architected and deployed a production AI automation platform with 27 REST endpoints serving email generation, social media responses, lead qualification, calendar scheduling, and RAG-based retrieval, orchestrating multiple LLMs (GPT-4, Claude, Perplexity) via FastAPI and DSPy
Engineered enterprise-grade safety systems including a 5-checkpoint validation pipeline preventing automated response failures
Built intelligent email generation with 8 specialized response modules and 20 situation-specific templates featuring dynamic tone calibration and conversation state tracking
Developed cross-platform social media response engine supporting LinkedIn, Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and SMS
Implemented production RAG pipeline using Supabase/pgvector for semantic email search and context-aware response generation
Owned full DevOps lifecycle — Docker, Azure Kubernetes Service, NGINX ingress, TLS, Sentry, Elasticsearch
Delivered 39K+ lines of test coverage across 57 test suites and 65+ debugging utilities

AI XPRT (Audit XPRT) LIMITED — Senior Solutions Architect

October 2019 – February 2020 · Pakistan

Conducted team training on GitHub Workflow adoption, reducing merge conflicts by 90% and accelerating release cycles
Built and deployed a machine learning pipeline using Scikit-learn, PyTorch, Kubernetes, Docker, and Kafka, accelerating loan compliance checks from 30 minutes to 30 seconds for 100s of applications per day

Sweet Pixel Studio — Co-Founder and CEO

November 2012 – September 2018

Led development of a gamified personality and skills assessment platform using Angular, Node.js, Unity, and Python, enabling a client to raise over €200,000 in funding
Scaled the company from 3 to 11 team members, driving 50% revenue growth
Secured 1.2M Rs in investment to expand game development capabilities
Developed and launched 6 Unity-powered mobile games for Android and iOS, attracting 100K+ players globally
Built and deployed an engineering training management system for a UK-based client using Ionic and Node.js
Created an insurance management app for a UK client (later acquired), generating substantial value

United Nations OCHA — Full Stack Engineer

July 2016 – February 2017 · Geneva, Switzerland

Wrote the first comprehensive test suite for the Response Plan Management (RPM) application, achieving 80% test coverage using Angular, Node.js, Python, and Jasmine/Mocha, reducing post-deployment issues by 40%
Developed new modules including Timeline View and Editor View for tracking and presenting response plans
Led UI/UX improvements for RPM to better support emergency operations for IDPs and refugees
Provided support and maintenance for the Financial Planning Service (FPS) application during disaster responses

The World Bank — Short Term Consultant

March 2014 – December 2016

Managed a cohort of 24 fellows for the KP Fellowship Program, overseeing 12 government-pitched solutions that positively impacted service delivery for millions of citizens
Directed two successful fellowship program cycles, leading to a 25% reduction in processing delays for targeted public services
Played a pivotal role in organizing the Digital Youth Summit (DYS), attracting foreign delegates and investors and securing investments in local startups
Supervised digital transformation initiatives reducing public sector inefficiencies by 30%

International Rescue Committee — Database Officer

November 2012 – June 2013 · Peshawar

Managed and maintained a database of 100,000+ internally displaced persons (IDPs), improving response efficiency by 30%
Developed and deployed a parser for the ODK survey tool, reducing data entry time by 50%
Designed C# scripts to streamline data management and cut report turnaround times by 40%

Welltime Ltd — Sr. Software Engineer / Software Engineer

September 2010 – November 2012

Led development of a web-based appointment booking system (R4 Appointment Diary) for dental practices, reducing booking errors by 40%
Built new features using C# and .NET Framework, increasing product adoption rates by 25%
Managed and mentored two junior developers
Streamlined workflows with Team Foundation Server (TFS), reducing build and deployment times by 30%
Developed Sociofluence, an application analyzing social media profiles to rank influence metrics

Education

University of Engineering & Technology Peshawar BS, Computer Science · 2006 – 2010

Certifications

edX Verified Certificate — Large Language Models: Application through Production
AI and Disaster Management
AI and Climate Change
AI and Public Health
Building Machine Learning Systems

Notable Projects

Harmless DSPy — The practical DSPy guide nobody else wrote. Real code, real errors, two years of production experience with the Stanford NLP framework for programming LLMs.

phntm.sh — Zero-knowledge file sharing that self-destructs. AES-256-GCM encryption runs entirely in-browser; the decryption key never touches the server.

Meridian — Open source blogging platform with zero platform fees. Built for writers who are tired of being rented their own audience.

Ozone — Terminal UI framework for the rest of us. Not another React-in-the-terminal clone.

KarachiChal — AI-powered travel itinerary planner built for Karachi. Served 100+ users with personalized trip plans.

Top Skills

Python · JavaScript · React · Node.js · DSPy · PyTorch · Machine Learning · LLMs · Harness Engineering · FastAPI · Docker · Kubernetes · Azure · AWS · Next.js · Angular · Supabase · PostgreSQL · RAG · Prompt Engineering

Languages

English (Full Professional) · Urdu · Punjabi · Pushto

Resume