Hammad Tariq — AI Application Engineer

About

I'm an AI Application Engineer based in Pakistan, working remotely with teams across the US, EU, and the Gulf. For most of the last decade I shipped mobile and full-stack software — 40+ production apps across banking, healthtech, telco, and retail. Over the last two years my work has shifted toward AI: integrating LLMs into real products, building RAG pipelines that hold up under load, and designing agent systems with evals and observability from day one.

I care about the unglamorous parts: retrieval quality, cost per query, hallucination rates, and the eval set that catches a prompt regression before it ships. I don't hand off code; I hand off shipped apps.

What I work with

AI Engineering: RAG, agent systems, LLM evaluation, function calling, fine-tuning, computer vision. Languages & frameworks: Python, TypeScript, Dart, Swift, Kotlin, FastAPI, Next.js, Flutter, React Native. Infrastructure: PostgreSQL, pgvector, Pinecone, Supabase, Firebase, AWS, GCP, Docker. AI providers: OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini, Together, Replicate.

Experience

• Lead Engineer, AIM Digital Technologies (July 2024 - May 2026 · Islamabad, Pakistan · Remote)
  Lead engineer at a studio shipping mobile, web, and AI products for startups and SMBs across the US, UK, and UAE. Architected Maven Now, a multi-tenant SaaS booking platform. Shipped 40+ apps across fintech, healthcare, telecom, and retail.
• Lead Mobile Engineer & Technical Architect, DTEK.ai (Dukkantek) (February 2022 - July 2024 · Dubai, United Arab Emirates)
  Lead mobile engineer on an AI-powered retail platform. Designed and shipped DTEK SWIFT, a computer-vision self-checkout kiosk, plus the Dukkantek POS suite. Led a team of 5 and cut release cycles from two weeks to three days.
• Mobile Application Developer, Zand Bank (September 2019 - February 2022 · Dubai, United Arab Emirates)
  Core mobile engineer on Zand — the UAE's first fully digital corporate bank, backed by Franklin Templeton and Aditya Birla. Built the native iOS and Android apps from greenfield, with V-Key auth, biometrics, and 2FA to UAE regulatory standards.
• Senior Android & iOS Developer, Askvider (February 2019 - September 2019 · Dubai, United Arab Emirates)
  Built Askvider, the first online video classified advertising platform, on Android and iOS. Implemented video upload, streaming, and playback with optimized compression and caching, shipped on both platforms with shared API integration.
• Senior Android Developer & Team Lead, Evamp & Saanga (February 2018 - January 2019 · Islamabad, Pakistan)
  Led Android on telecom and government apps used by millions across Pakistan, KSA, and Kuwait — MEW Pay for Kuwait's Ministry of Electricity & Water, and the Zain KSA B2C app. Mentored four devs and set MVVM standards across the team.
• Senior Android Developer & Project Lead, Switch Solutions (March 2017 - September 2017 · Islamabad, Pakistan)
  Led Android development on Jazz Bakhabar Kissan, an agri-data app for Pakistani farmers with live weather and market feeds. Also built Farm to Home, a farm-to-consumer e-commerce app with integrated mobile-account and cash-on-delivery payments.
• Mobile Application Developer, Evamp & Saanga (June 2015 - March 2017 · Islamabad, Pakistan)
  Mobile engineer on consumer telecom and fintech apps with tens of millions of users. Shipped My Telenor for Telenor Pakistan, Easypaisa for mobile payments and bill pay, and Korek Self-Care for Korek Telecom Iraq.

Featured projects

• Zand Corporate · February 2022
  Mobile app for the UAE's first fully digital corporate bank, backed by Franklin Templeton and Aditya Birla. Built from scratch through App Store submission — secure auth, financial-grade data handling, transaction histories, and approval workflows.
• Mock First · August 2023
  AI mock-interview platform. OpenAI-powered feedback loop over video recordings, with face and gesture detection. Timed sessions, transcript analysis, and per-candidate progress tracking.
• Zain KSA · August 2018
  Official self-care app for Zain KSA — millions of users across Saudi Arabia. Line purchase, recharge, bill pay, and delivery tracking, no mandatory login.
• Albi · October 2023
  Field-service platform for restoration businesses. Job workflows, scheduling, invoicing, and payments — built for crews that work out of trucks, not desks.
• DTEK Swift · April 2022
  AI-powered self-checkout. On-device computer vision recognizes products in under 200ms, deployed across kiosks in 7 markets. DTEK raised $20M during this product's rollout.
• EasyPaisa · June 2016
  Pakistan's flagship digital wallet, with tens of millions of users. Money transfers, bill pay, mobile top-ups, and secure card-linked transactions.
• GoShipSmart · March 2024
  Logistics and shipment-tracking platform. Drivers manage deliveries, customers track status live, and ops sees the whole pipeline on one dashboard.
• Golf Trotter · September 2023
  Social network for golfers, with profiles, live feeds, and a kiosk mode for self check-in at courses. Iterated on the original app and shipped it to production.
• MEW Pay · November 2019
  Utility-payment app for Kuwait's Ministry of Electricity & Water. Smart-meter integration and secure bill payments for nationwide residents.
• Farm to Home · April 2022
  Grocery delivery app for fresh produce. Live order tracking, digital payments, and a fulfillment flow that runs from store pick to doorstep.
• Quaf Quiz · July 2021
  Real-time multiplayer quiz built on Firebase. Live games, push notifications, leaderboards — synced state across hundreds of concurrent players.
• My Telenor · April 2015
  Official self-care app for Telenor Pakistan. Account management, usage, offers, and secure telecom services for millions of subscribers.

Get in touch

Currently open to senior / staff AI Engineer roles, remote, US / EU / Canada timezones. Also taking on selected contract engagements. Reach me via GitHub or Stack Overflow.