Dear Recruiters

My Personal Message to any recruiters that come across this page.

Dear Recruiters


Hi — I'm Zahir.

If you're reading this, there's a good chance you're evaluating candidates for a role, and you landed on my website while reviewing my background.

Rather than repeating what's on my resume, I wanted to use this space to give you a clearer sense of how I think as an engineer and the kinds of problems I enjoy solving.

I Like Building Systems That Remove Friction


Most of the work I've done so far has focused on identifying slow or manual workflows and turning them into fast, automated systems.

At Gentoro, I worked on an agentic AI workflow designed to automate parts of the recruiting workflow. The system screens resumes against job descriptions and processes incoming candidate data automatically.

To make that work in practice, I built:

  • a Flask-based ingestion system that processes resumes as soon as they are uploaded
  • real-time file watchers that trigger the evaluation pipeline immediately
  • API integrations using MCP servers to unify scheduling and notifications

The result was a system that reduced candidate matching turnaround from hours to near real-time.

What I enjoyed most about this project wasn't just working with LLMs — it was designing the infrastructure around them that allowed the system to function reliably.

I Enjoy Turning Complex Workflows Into Simple Tools


During my internship at Onto Innovation, I worked with optical engineers analyzing interferometer data for lens comparisons. Their process involved manually comparing data sets, which could take over two hours per analysis. I built a visualization tool that allowed engineers to compare and interpret that data through a streamlined interface.

The result: Analysis time dropped from 2+ hours to about 5 minutes.

After presenting the tool to senior engineers and leadership, the framework was approved for broader adoption across engineering teams.

That project reinforced something important for me:

The best engineering work often comes from understanding someone else's workflow and removing the friction from it.

Teaching Made Me a Better Engineer


While studying computer science at Occidental College, I also worked as a CS tutor.

Over time I worked with 100+ students across 150+ hours, helping them with:

  • Python
  • Java
  • C++
  • debugging strategies
  • object-oriented programming
  • algorithms

Teaching forced me to articulate concepts clearly and break down complex ideas into simple explanations.

That skill translates directly into engineering teams where communication and collaboration matter as much as writing good code.

How I Approach Engineering


Across my internships and projects, a few principles guide how I build software.

I think in systems

Most interesting engineering problems involve multiple moving parts: APIs, pipelines, models, and infrastructure. I enjoy designing how those pieces interact—not just to make them work, but to make them reliable, observable, and scalable.

I tend to zoom out before I dive in:

  • Where are the bottlenecks?
  • What fails under load?
  • How will this evolve over time?

This helps me avoid local optimizations and instead build systems that hold up in real-world conditions.

I take ownership

I like owning problems end-to-end—from vague requirements to a working, deployed solution.

That includes:

  • Scoping the problem clearly
  • Making reasonable tradeoffs
  • Following through on implementation and polish

I don’t just aim to complete tasks, but to deliver outcomes.

I value simplicity

Simple systems are easier to maintain, debug, and extend.

I try to:

  • Avoid over-engineering early
  • Choose straightforward solutions when they work
  • Introduce complexity only when it’s justified

Good engineering isn’t about using the most advanced pattern—it’s about using the right level of abstraction.

I communicate clearly

Engineering is a team activity. I make an effort to:

  • Write code that others can read and understand
  • Document decisions and tradeoffs
  • Ask questions early when something is unclear

Clear communication reduces friction and helps teams move faster.

I care about iteration, not perfection

I aim to get something working quickly, then improve it.

Instead of trying to design the perfect system upfront, I:

  • Ship early versions
  • Learn from real usage
  • Refactor based on actual needs

This keeps progress steady and grounded in reality.

What I have been Building

While I have continued my career at Gentoro.ai, I have also continued to learn by building personal projects in my own time.


Candidate Database

I had a conversation with a friend working at a local VC firm. Part of our conversation was focused around the hiring process of portfolio companies at his firm. He described the process of finding promising candidates for their portfolio companies but not having current roles for them, but when a role does come around, they currently have no system in place to help track down candidates they previously interviewed.

After hearing this I decided to play around with the idea, and ended up building:

  • A React frontend to create a simple user-friendly UI to interact with the Database as well as a Chatbot for Natural Lang. Query
  • A Fastapi backend to create API endpoints to query the llm and help with ensuring valid data (With room to expand in the future)
  • Postgres server + pgvector to allow for a vector search among their clients using cosine similarity search to find person closest to their query.
  • The app also includes a more traditional filter mode to find clients and allows for CRUD abilities related to client profiles. These technologies were used to create an MVP of a potential in-house DB they could use to pull promising clients via Natural Language. As of now there is not word on whether the company will adopt the Database but I will post an update as soon as I get one.

What I'm Looking For

I'm particularly excited about opportunities in:

  • AI engineering
  • backend systems
  • developer platforms
  • applied machine learning
  • infrastructure that supports intelligent systems

Environments where engineers have ownership over the systems they build are especially appealing to me.

If You're Hiring

Thanks for taking the time to read this.

If you think my background might be a fit for your team, I'd be happy to connect.

Feel free to use my contact form on this website to reach out to me, as well as download my resume on

my homepage.