Manchester, UK

ZahidImran

AI Engineer — Agentic Systems, RAG, MCP

I build production AI systems that have to be right: document-AI pipelines with deterministic verification, agentic workflows with human-in-the-loop control, and LLM evaluation that keeps models honest. Currently a Software Engineer at POWWR in Manchester, working on document AI, agentic tooling and the cost engineering that makes both viable at scale.

Zahid Imran, AI Engineer based in Manchester, UK
Scroll — the numbers speak
AI-narrated · ~2½ min · captions · esc to leave

Impact in numbers

Measured results from production systems — every number links to its proof

The house

A day in his house, in 3D — drag to orbit, click a room to step inside; the timeline below runs the years

building the house…

August 2026

workingSoftware Engineer · POWWR

  • Build production document-AI pipelines that turn unstructured business documents into validated, structured records.
  • Design deterministic verification around model output — grounding to source text, plausibility bounds, self-consistency — so extractions can be trusted without additional model calls.

buildingportfolio

  • portfolio — 35 commits this month · Monochrome editorial portfolio - Next.js static export, hand-drawn SVG charts, MCP-driven

Selected projects

Three flagship builds with their architectures, then everything else

Omni-Channel AI Executive Assistant

Case study ↗

A 24/7 personal assistant that answers WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger — and knows when to wake a human.

  • Centralized n8n orchestration layer unifying WhatsApp Business, Instagram Graph API and Facebook Messenger.
  • Router agent classifies incoming messages with an LLM; routine inquiries get context-aware replies, high-priority items go to human-in-the-loop review via a private Telegram bot.
  • An Observer agent logs interactions to Notion/PostgreSQL and compiles a nightly Daily Activity Briefing; n8n Queue Mode keeps responses sub-second under load.
Meta APIsLLM routingTelegramNotion
WhatsAppInstagramMessengern8n Router AgentLLM classificationContext-aware replyroutine inquiriesHuman reviewTelegram HITLObserver agentnightly briefingNotion · PostgreSQLinteraction log
Architecture

Autonomous Recruitment Agent (LLM-as-a-Judge)

Case study ↗

Resume screening that agrees with human recruiters 85% of the time — with 40% fewer false positives.

  • Judge agent grades candidates against a strict rubric with per-criterion confidence scores, instead of generic summaries.
  • Validated on a golden dataset of 100 human-reviewed resumes using Ragas and Arize Phoenix.
  • Data ingestion standardized with Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers for Google Drive and Airtable — no brittle API glue.
  • The judging core is open source and runnable: rubric grading, position-bias measurement, self-consistency and human-agreement scoring, with 37 tests that pass offline.
Airtable
Google DriveMCP serverAirtableMCP serverJudge agentrubric · per-criterion confidenceGraded candidates85% human agreementGolden set · 100 resumesRagas · Arize Phoenix
Architecture

Privacy-Preserving PII Redaction Pipeline

Case study ↗

PII detection and redaction at near-zero inference cost — no document ever leaves the machine.

  • Local-first NLP pipeline detecting and redacting personally identifiable information in sensitive documents.
  • Replaced cloud APIs with a fine-tuned Microsoft Phi-3 small language model running fully locally.
  • 100% data sovereignty by design — built for strict GDPR/privacy environments.
Phi-3 (SLM)Edge AIGDPR
LOCAL MACHINE — NOTHING LEAVESDocumentFine-tuned Phi-3PII detect + redactRedacted outputNo cloud calls · 100% data sovereignty · GDPR by design
Architecture

Also built

Agentic Travel Intelligence Dashboard

An agent that queries, filters and ranks hotels on its own — then feeds a live BI dashboard.

  • Self-directed agentic workflow using the Google Maps API and function calling to rank hotels against complex constraints (price, rating, proximity).
  • ETL pipeline transforming raw API JSON into structured business intelligence for a real-time PowerBI dashboard.
Function callingGoogle Maps APIETLPowerBI

Speech Enhancement with Transformers

Repo ↗

Audio restoration at 14 dB SI-SNR and 2.25 PESQ, served in real time.

  • Fine-tuned a Transformer architecture for audio restoration, reaching 14 dB SI-SNR and 2.25 PESQ.
  • Deployed on Streamlit Cloud with an inference pipeline tuned for real-time audio streams at minimal latency.
PyTorchTransformersSpeechBrainStreamlit

Localized Text-to-Speech (XTTS-v2)

Repo ↗

A TTS voice that finally sounds right in Asian English accents.

  • Fine-tuned XTTS-v2 on a custom Asian-English accent dataset via transfer learning, improving prosody and naturalness for underrepresented dialects.
  • Built an automated audio preprocessing pipeline (clean, normalize, segment) for high-fidelity convergence.
XTTS-v2Transfer learningAudio pipelines

DubLingo — Urdu→Arabic Drama Dubbing

Automating the dubbing of Urdu drama into Arabic, so the work reaches an audience it never had.

  • Built with the UrduX Lab team during the Grayhat internship: LLM-driven translation feeding an automated dubbing pipeline.
  • Paired with a Whisper model fine-tuned on Urdu that cut word error rate by 4%.
LLMsWhisperPythonSpeech pipelines

Emotion Detection from Voice

Reading emotion from speech at 72% accuracy across four model architectures.

  • Compared CNN, ANN, LSTM and hybrid CNN+LSTM models on the same speech-emotion task.
  • The hybrid architecture reached 72% accuracy — the strongest of the four.
CNNLSTMDeep LearningPyTorch

FOG Prediction Pipeline (MLOps)

Repo ↗

A full training-to-deployment loop that runs itself on every commit.

  • End-to-end MLOps pipeline with GitHub Actions and Docker automating collection, preprocessing, training and deployment.
  • MLflow for experiment tracking and model registry, DVC for data versioning — every run reproducible.
MLflowDVCDockerGitHub Actions

More from GitHub

Primary language of 18 public repos · fetched at build · click a bar to filter

More on github.com/zaahidimraan

727 commits across my public repos, by month · fetched from git at build · busiest month: 228
2024202520262023-09 · 23 commits2023-10 · 55 commits2023-12 · 228 commits2024-01 · 58 commits2024-07 · 37 commits2024-08 · 189 commits2024-09 · 44 commits2024-10 · 15 commits2025-12 · 4 commits2026-02 · 33 commits2026-07 · 6 commits2026-08 · 35 commits
19 public repos · first commit → last push · filled dot = active in the last 3 months
202120222023202420252026DeepLearningA1 · Python · 2023-09 → 2023-10DeepLearningA1DeepLearningA2 · Jupyter Notebook · 2023-10 → 2023-10DeepLearningA2InfoSecA2 · Python · 2023-10 → 2023-10InfoSecA2AirQaulityChecker_MLops · Python · 2023-12 → 2024-01AirQaulityChecker_MLo…XTTS-v2 · — · 2024-05 → 2024-05XTTS-v2speechenhancementFineTuning · Jupyter Notebook · 2024-07 → 2024-09speechenhancementFine…DiffusionModelForSpeechEnhancement · Python · 2024-07 → 2024-07DiffusionModelForSpee…NoiseRemoverGAN · Jupyter Notebook · 2024-07 → 2024-07NoiseRemoverGANChatbotForVisaAdvisor · Jupyter Notebook · 2024-07 → 2024-10ChatbotForVisaAdvisorspeechenahncement-UI · Python · 2024-07 → 2024-07speechenahncement-UIAudioDataPreprossingTasks · Jupyter Notebook · 2024-08 → 2024-08AudioDataPreprossingT…speechenhancementUIctk · Jupyter Notebook · 2024-08 → 2024-09speechenhancementUIctkGoogleGenerativeAIChatbot · Python · 2024-08 → 2024-08GoogleGenerativeAICha…WebsiteScraper · Python · 2024-08 → 2024-08WebsiteScraperAppointmentBooking · Python · 2024-09 → 2026-08AppointmentBookingclothes-designer · Python · 2025-12 → 2025-12clothes-designerAISocialMediaAnalyzer · Python · 2026-02 → 2026-02AISocialMediaAnalyzerDataUnificationAgent · Python · 2026-02 → 2026-02DataUnificationAgentportfolio · TypeScript · 2026-08 → 2026-08portfolio

Experience

Click any bar to open the full entry — concurrent roles show in parallel

  1. Software Engineer · POWWR

    Mar 2026 – Present
    POWWR team spotlight
    • Build production document-AI pipelines that turn unstructured business documents into validated, structured records.
    • Design deterministic verification around model output — grounding to source text, plausibility bounds, self-consistency — so extractions can be trusted without additional model calls.
    • Work on internal automation and data-reconciliation tooling, and on evaluation practice for AI features heading into production.
    • Research cost-efficient inference: token accounting, prompt caching, context compaction, and local/open-weight model cascades.
    • Lead AI enablement for engineering colleagues — agentic workflows, model selection, token economics and MCP connectors.
  2. Generative AI Engineer · Sparkix Technologies

    Sep 2024 – Dec 2024
    • Built GenAI applications with LLMs and RAG; shipped Flask and FastAPI services to Azure and AWS.
    • Worked with OpenAI APIs across chatbots, vision-based quality reporting and structured JSON outputs with LangChain.
  3. Generative AI Engineer · Horizon Tech Services

    May 2024 – Nov 2024
    • Speech enhancement with GAN and Transformer models in PyTorch; selected, trained and fine-tuned sep-former and GAN models.
  4. Deep Learning Intern · GrayHat · Final Year Project

    Sep 2023 – May 2024
    • Automatic video dubbing backend (Flask) reaching 85% accuracy; fine-tuned OpenAI Whisper on Urdu, cutting word error rate by 4%.

MSc Data Science (Distinction)

University of Salford, Manchester

Jan 2025 – Mar 2026

Advanced Databases · Big Data Tools & Techniques · Machine Learning and Data Mining · Applied Statistics and Data Visualization

BSc Computer Science (GPA 3.16/4)

FAST NUCES, Pakistan

Aug 2020 – Jun 2024

Artificial Intelligence · Statistical Modeling · Deep Learning · MLOps · Generative AI · Cloud Computing · Distributed Data Engineering

Volunteering

Developer · FAST Blockchain Society

Nov 2022 – May 2024

Built and maintained the society's projects across a year and a half.

Sponsorship Coordinator · FAST Computing Society

Nov 2022 – May 2024

Secured and managed sponsor relationships for society events.

Skills

Chips with a count are clickable — they light up the work that proves them

Agentic Orchestration

LangGraphClaude CodeReAct / Plan-and-Execute

GenAI & LLMs

Prompt Compression

Evaluation & Ops

Prompt Caching

Data & Vector Engineering

QdrantPineconeRedis (Semantic Caching)Airtable

Core Development

Next.js.NET (C#)AWS Lambda

Chips with a count are clickable — they highlight the work that proves the skill

Where each technology was used

19 technologies × 7 places · filled = evidenced by a CV bullet · hover a row or column to trace it
Technology usage matrix: each row is a technology, each column a role or flagship project. A filled cell means that technology is evidenced there.
TechnologyPOWWRSparkixHorizonGrayHatOmni-ChannelAutonomousPrivacy-Preserving
Fine-Tuning (LoRA/QLoRA)Not usedNot usedNot usedNot used
PythonNot usedNot usedNot usedNot used
FlaskNot usedNot usedNot usedNot usedNot used
PyTorchNot usedNot usedNot usedNot usedNot usedNot used
Structured OutputsNot usedNot usedNot usedNot usedNot used
Voice AgentsNot usedNot usedNot usedNot usedNot usedNot used
Agentic RAGNot usedNot usedNot usedNot usedNot usedNot used
Arize PhoenixNot usedNot usedNot usedNot usedNot usedNot used
Azure OpenAINot usedNot usedNot usedNot usedNot usedNot used
FastAPINot usedNot usedNot usedNot usedNot usedNot used
Latency (TTFT) OptimizationNot usedNot usedNot usedNot usedNot usedNot used
LLM Cost OptimizationNot usedNot usedNot usedNot usedNot usedNot used
LLM-as-a-JudgeNot usedNot usedNot usedNot usedNot usedNot used
Local LLMs (Ollama)Not usedNot usedNot usedNot usedNot usedNot used
Model Context Protocol (MCP)Not usedNot usedNot usedNot usedNot usedNot used
Multi-Agent SystemsNot usedNot usedNot usedNot usedNot usedNot used
n8nNot usedNot usedNot usedNot usedNot usedNot used
PostgreSQL (pgvector)Not usedNot usedNot usedNot usedNot usedNot used
RagasNot usedNot usedNot usedNot usedNot usedNot used

Certificates

Fifteen certificates across three tracks — the lanes show where the focus went

16 certificates · 2023 → today · one lane per track · hover a dot
2023202420252026AGENTIC AIClaude Code: A Highly Agentic Coding Assistant — DeepLearning.AI, Feb 2026Evaluating AI Agents — DeepLearning.AI, Jan 2026MCP: Build Rich-Context AI Apps with Anthropic — DeepLearning.AI, Feb 2026AI Agentic Design Patterns with AutoGen — DeepLearning.AI, Jan 2026Agentic AI — DeepLearning.AI, Dec 2025Building Agentic RAG with LlamaIndex — DeepLearning.AI, Dec 2025Building AI Voice Agents for Production — DeepLearning.AI, Jan 2025Building Live Voice Agents with Google's ADK — DeepLearning.AI, Dec 2024CORE GENAIPretraining LLM — DeepLearning.AI, Jan 2026Prompt Compression and Query Optimization — DeepLearning.AI, Jan 2026Vector Databases: From Embeddings to Applications — DeepLearning.AI, Aug 2024LangChain for LLM Application Development — DeepLearning.AI, Jul 2024Preprocessing Unstructured Data for LLM Applications — DeepLearning.AI, Jun 2024Generative AI with Large Language Models — Coursera, Nov 2023CLOUD & MLOPSOpen Source Models with Hugging Face — DeepLearning.AI, May 2024AWS Academy: Microservices & CI/CD Pipeline Builder — AWS, Apr 2024

DeepLearning.AIAWS · Coursera

  • Claude Code: A Highly Agentic Coding AssistantDeepLearning.AI · Feb 2026
  • Evaluating AI AgentsDeepLearning.AI · Jan 2026
  • MCP: Build Rich-Context AI Apps with AnthropicDeepLearning.AI · Feb 2026
  • AI Agentic Design Patterns with AutoGenDeepLearning.AI · Jan 2026
  • Pretraining LLMDeepLearning.AI · Jan 2026
  • Prompt Compression and Query OptimizationDeepLearning.AI · Jan 2026
  • Agentic AIDeepLearning.AI · Dec 2025
  • Building Agentic RAG with LlamaIndexDeepLearning.AI · Dec 2025
  • Building AI Voice Agents for ProductionDeepLearning.AI · Jan 2025
  • Building Live Voice Agents with Google's ADKDeepLearning.AI · Dec 2024
  • Vector Databases: From Embeddings to ApplicationsDeepLearning.AI · Aug 2024
  • LangChain for LLM Application DevelopmentDeepLearning.AI · Jul 2024
  • Preprocessing Unstructured Data for LLM ApplicationsDeepLearning.AI · Jun 2024
  • Open Source Models with Hugging FaceDeepLearning.AI · May 2024
  • AWS Academy: Microservices & CI/CD Pipeline BuilderAWS · Apr 2024
  • Generative AI with Large Language ModelsCoursera · Nov 2023

Ask my portfolio

A live MCP server — connect an AI client and question my CV directly

Don't read a CV — interrogate one. This portfolio publishes a live Model Context Protocol server, so Claude (or any MCP client) can answer questions about my work from the same data this page renders. It never invents: ask about something I haven't done and it says so.

claude mcp add --transport http zahid https://ask-zahid.zaahidimraan.workers.dev

or paste the URL into claude.ai → settings → connectors

  • get_profilewho he is, where, what he's open to
  • get_experienceevery role with its quantified results
  • get_projectsflagships and side projects, with the tech
  • get_skillsskills by category
  • get_educationdegrees, grades, modules
  • get_certificationsall 15 certificates
  • get_metricsthe headline numbers
  • search_profilefree-text — “has he used X?”
  • get_cvCV PDF and profile links