The ai Ikigai: Chapter 10: The Talent Paradox in the AI Era
For decades, there’s been a prevailing belief in engineering leadership: hire more senior people, and your platforms will get better. More experience. More reliability. Fewer mistakes. But if there’s one thing AI is forcing us all to do, it’s question old assumptions—and this is one of them. Because the truth is: in AI, seniority is […]
The AI Ikigai: Chapter 9: Clashing AI Dreams with Budget Realities
Here’s no one talks about when they dream about the AI, the budget, yeah the capex and opex. The age of AI is arriving fast—but it’s arriving in the middle of a fiscal storm. CTOs everywhere are being asked to drive transformation while also cutting costs. To embrace AI-native infrastructure while still supporting legacy stacks. […]
The AI Ikigai: Chapter 8: The Explorer’s Advantage — Why Seasoned Builders Matter More Than Ever in the AI Era
Recently at a customer meeting, I was talking to one of our biggest client in Bahrain who happened to have Indian roots. shared with him how AI isn’t something just came to the tech scene. I reflected on how in my college computer lab in 1995, I wrote my first program on what was then […]
The AI Ikigai: Chapter 7: Like Crafting the Perfect Vegetarian Pho
The first time I tasted vegetarian pho was at the Microsoft cafeteria in Redmond. It was an unusually cold Seattle afternoon, and I was rushing between meetings when I took a chance on the Vietnamese soup I’d only vaguely heard of before. That bowl of pho changed something for me. Its complexity was hidden in […]
The AI Ikigai: Chapter 6: Human-Powered AI — Lessons from a Telco That Beat the GenAI Wave
Before GenAI had its name, and long before chatbots became boardroom must-haves, I was working on something far less glamorous — and far more foundational. At Visible, Verizon’s digital-only telco brand, we didn’t have the luxury of massive customer support centers or armies of agents. We had a bold promise to keep: run a scalable, […]
The AI Ikigai – Chapter 5: From Pilots to Platforms — Scaling AI Through Execution Discipline
At some point in every AI journey, the strategy deck ends — and the real work begins. In boardrooms and offsites, we talk about the promise of AI: personalization, automation, transformation. But in practice, AI dies — quietly and often — in that awkward middle space between a proof-of-concept and a production-grade system. Having built […]
The AI Ikigai – Chapter 4: Guardrails Before Glory — Governance, Ethics, and Risk in the Age of AI
By Himanshu Niranjani Chief Technology Officer, Property Finder In the rush to build and deploy AI, many organizations mistake speed for strategy. But those of us who’ve lived through large-scale AI deployments know this: without proper guardrails, speed turns into spectacle. And spectacle, when built on unchecked data, biased logic, or unclear accountability, doesn’t just […]
AI Ikigai – Chapter 3: The Human Operating System — People, Skills, and Culture in the Age of AI
In every AI conversation I’ve had over the years — from Microsoft’s engineering floors to Amazon’s AI council chambers, and now at Property Finder — the same theme quietly surfaces: “How do we get our people ready for this?” And I get it. For all the noise about models, GPU clusters, and generative breakthroughs, the […]
Before the AI Boom Drowns Us: Lessons in Infrastructure from the Ground Up
By Himanshu Niranjani, CTO at Property Finder The world is watching as the Middle East, and the UAE in particular, positions itself as a global epicenter for AI innovation. With billions earmarked for AI transformation across sectors — from education and logistics to smart cities and public services — the ambition is undeniable. The intent […]
The AI Ikigai – Chapter 2: Laying the Groundwork – Why Great AI Starts with Boring Infrastructure
When we talk about AI, it’s tempting to jump straight to use cases, models, and clever demos. But the hard truth I’ve learned — across Amazon, Microsoft, Visible, and now at Property Finder — is this: If your data is a mess and your tech stack is brittle, AI will expose that faster than any […]
5 Essential AI Tools Every Tech Professional Should Master in 2025
AI tools have become indispensable for developers and tech professionals seeking to stay competitive and efficient. The right AI assistants can dramatically boost your productivity, enhance code quality, and help you solve complex problems faster. In this article, I’ll share five game-changing AI tools that deserve a place in every tech professional’s toolkit in 2025. […]
The AI Ikigai – Chapter 1: AI Must Serve Your Business, Not the Other Way Around
By Himanshu Niranjani, CTO, Property Finder A few years ago, the same consultants now pushing AI were insisting that the future of business lay in NFTs and the metaverse. Before that, it was Web3. Today, boardrooms are buzzing with excitement—and anxiety—about artificial intelligence. Buzzwords abound: LLMs, GenAI, RAG, AutoML, foundation models, autonomous agents. The energy […]
When the Wave You’re Riding Becomes a Vortex Part 2 of a Two-Part Series on Career Navigation in Tech Disruption
If you haven’t read Part 1 of this series yet, I encourage you to start there — especially if you’re early in your career. It includes real stories from my own life when I had to hunker down during turbulent tech shifts and how those painful decisions later turned into incredible growth. This article, however, […]
Understanding Through Experience
In a recent conversation with a colleague, I used an analogy to underscore the significance of firsthand experience. I said, “Asking a non-believer to describe God repeatedly does not give us any clearer understanding.” This simple yet profound statement encapsulates a fundamental belief about knowledge and understanding: true comprehension comes from direct engagement, not merely […]
A Vortex Could Be a Wave: Advice to the Next Generation of Engineers – Part 1 of a 2-Part Series on Thriving Through Technological Upheaval
“Dad, is AI really going to take away coding jobs?”My son, a computer science student at Berkeley, asked me this last week over dinner. It’s a question many young engineers are asking today — and rightfully so. We’re entering a new era where the technological landscape is shifting so fast that even seasoned professionals are […]