Zahir Choudhry
AI Engineer

About Me

AI Engineer who owns systems end-to-end — from architecture through production — at early-stage, VC-backed AI startups. I build backend infrastructure, APIs, and AI agents operating at scale.

My main interest is to continue building agentic workflows that can make a positive impact on people's lives. That being said, I am also open to any work which can help me grow as a developer and engineer.

Outside of work, I love to go to the gym, cook, play basketball, and watch movies. I am also very interested in cars and working / modifying some on my own some day.

  1. AI Engineer

    Gentoro.ai
    Sep 2025 – PresentMenlo Park, CA
    • Built and hardened production integrations with three external systems (Bullhorn ATS, Gmail, Microsoft Graph) behind a swappable provider interface — reverse-engineering undocumented behavior (a silent sender-format quirk, an unstated OAuth scope requirement) that no public docs covered.
    • Built a hybrid retrieval and prompt-injection-hardened LLM pipeline that cut inference costs ~80% while screening and routing 1,000+ applicants per posting via LLM scoring and reply-intent triage.
    • Designed a Postgres-backed reliability layer so multi-step agent workflows stayed correct even when individual steps failed.
    • Led a 4-person engineering team shipping a 3-service, ~20K-line production platform (Next.js frontend, FastAPI backend, PostgreSQL, 310+ unit tests); partnered directly with enterprise customers through weekly demos and technical reviews.
  2. AI Engineer Intern

    Gentoro.ai
    Jul 2025 – Sep 2025Menlo Park, CA
    • Built the initial prototype of an autonomous recruiting agent (LangGraph, MCP) integrating the Bullhorn ATS, Gmail, and Google Calendar APIs to automate resume ingestion through interview scheduling.
    • Established the agent architecture, model-routing design, and service boundaries that became the foundation of Gentoro's production recruiting platform.
  3. Software Engineer Intern

    Onto Innovation
    May 2024 – Aug 2024San Jose, CA
    • Built a data visualization platform that cut optical lens comparison time from 2+ hours to 5 minutes; presented to engineering leadership, driving adoption across multiple teams.
    • Developed Python automation tools to process inspection data from semiconductor manufacturing systems, reducing manual analysis time and improving workflow efficiency.
    • Collaborated with hardware and software engineers to identify bottlenecks and design scalable internal tooling.
  1. B.A. Computer Science, Cum Laude

    Occidental College
    2021 – 2025Los Angeles, CA

    Relevant Coursework: Large Language Models, Software Engineering, Automata Theory, AI, Machine Learning.

  2. Study Abroad

    Chinese University of Hong Kong
    August 2023 – December 2023Shatin, New Territories, HK

    Did a study abroad to get a chance to learn from a top 25 CS Institution in the world.

  3. Coursework

    California Institute of Technology
    August 2024 - December 2024Pasadena, CA

    Supplemental coursework alongside Occidental College studies.

PythonTypeScriptJavaAgentic Workflows (LangGraph, MCP)RAG / Hybrid Semantic SearchPrompt-Injection DefenseFastAPIFlaskNext.jsReactPostgreSQLPineconeDockerAWS (EC2 + CDK) / GCP / AzureSystem DesignAI Coding Tools [Claude, Codex, Cursor]