Based in Nairobi, I'm remote-first with 7 years of experience working with distributed teams. I consult with founders, operators, and enterprise teams who want to ship AI-enabled software without the drag of building a large engineering department. You might know me as Jay Kiharani elsewhere on the internet.
Over the past 9 years I've helped launch insurance portals, accounting automations, and customer-facing products that blend modern web engineering with trusted AI platforms like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google Gemini. My role flexes from architect and product strategist to engineer and coach - whatever gets your initiative into the hands of customers faster.
I join each project with a bias for clarity, measurable outcomes, and strong communication across technical and non-technical teams.
6+ years working with distributed teams across Kenya, Europe, and North America to launch AI-enabled products and customer experiences.
Comfortable writing the code, designing the workflows, and working directly with stakeholders to hit deadlines.
Treat every engagement like an in-house lead - aligned with revenue, retention, and customer satisfaction.
Step in as an embedded product and engineering consultant, keeping AI strategy and delivery on track without a full-time hire.
Every engagement is tailored to your stage, from launching a first website to integrating AI copilots across global teams.
From solo operators in Nairobi to enterprise teams across North America and Europe, I tailor AI and software support to match your goals, pace, and risk profile.
Lightweight engagements to get you online quickly with future-proof foundations.
I become your remote product & technology partner so you can stay focused on customers.
Hands-on execution plus leadership to align AI initiatives with retention and revenue goals.
Strategic consulting and delivery sprints that respect complex stakeholders, security policies, and scale.
A glimpse into recent projects and the outcomes we achieved together.
Anonymized delivery stories showing how strategy, engineering, and AI systems translate into operational and commercial leverage.
Validation Without Headcount
How a founder validated a micro-insurance offer with a conversion-focused site, an AI-assisted quoting flow, and a lightweight analytics stack instead of hiring a full engineering team upfront.
Operational AI With Guardrails
How a retail team reduced support handling pressure by connecting AI assistants to order, policy, and payment systems while keeping humans in control of final decisions.
From Data Friction to Decision Velocity
How a logistics operator unified fragmented telemetry, finance, and service data into a live control layer that helped leadership see route health and operational risk faster.
Opinionated choices across AI, data, and product engineering so your teams inherit maintainable systems.
Consultant-level software engineer specialising in production-ready AI systems. Blend full-stack delivery, ML research, and systems architecture to help distributed teams ship resilient products. Comfortable leading discovery, architecting cloud and data platforms, and implementing LLM-powered workflows that drive measurable business lift.
18+
AI-native initiatives shipped
RAG copilots, automation pipelines, and ML-driven SaaS launches since 2020.
20M+
Transactions secured monthly
Payments infrastructure hardened across high-volume, regulated environments.
45 days
Speed-to-impact
Average time from discovery to production rollout on net-new client engagements.
Turing
Palo Alto, CA, USA (Remote)
Nov 2025 – Present
Build custom reinforcement learning training environments for enterprise clients, combining FastAPI backends with React frontiers to accelerate RL model development cycles.
Turing
Palo Alto, CA, USA (Remote)
Sep 2024 – Oct 2025
Engineer within an applied research pod translating LLM breakthroughs into production-grade developer tooling.
MjengoSmart
Nairobi, Kenya (Hybrid)
Jan 2023 – Present
Own the entire technology stack - from cloud infrastructure and security to business email suites and developer tooling - while scaling SaaS for construction project operations, payments, and supplier collaboration.
BSc. Electrical and Electronics Engineering
University of Nairobi
Nairobi, Kenya • 2014 – 2019
Five years inside labs and control rooms that demanded systems thinking, fault-tolerant design, and optionality across hardware and software - discipline that still shows up in every production launch.
Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education
Siakago Boys' High School
Mbeere, Kenya • 2009 – 2012
Balanced maths mastery with national science congress wins to graduate with an A, earning admission to the prestigious University of Nairobi Dental School - then chose engineering for the bigger systems puzzles.
Let's ship your next milestone
I work best with founder-led and growth-stage teams that need a senior operator to scope the opportunity, build the system, and get to a measurable win fast. Tell me what is blocked and we'll map the shortest path to value.
Typical engagements start with a focused 4-12 week sprint, with optional ongoing support once the system is live.
