Five years at LinkedIn
Senior Software Engineer on search and recommendations for LinkedIn News and Sales Navigator.
Fractional CTO for non-technical founders
A senior technical partner, before you can hire a full-time CTO.
I'm Ibraheem. I spent five years as an engineer at LinkedIn, hold a US patent in AI, and took a healthcare platform to production through SOC 2 and HIPAA as its founding engineer.
Now I work with founders who have a product to build and nobody senior on the technical side. I make the architecture, hiring, vendor and AI decisions with you, explain them in plain language, and build the hard parts myself when that is faster.
Track record
Built and run at scale, and in regulated industries.
A US patent in AI
Inventor on a US patent for AI-driven recommendations.
SOC 2 and HIPAA in production
As a founding engineer, took a healthcare platform to production through both audits.
Where I help
You are making technical decisions without a technical partner.
Most founders I talk to are in one of these spots. Each one is cheaper to get right now than to unwind in a year.
An agency or freelancer built v1, and you cannot tell if it is any good.
I read the code, the infrastructure and the contract, and tell you in plain terms what is solid, what is risky and what it will cost to fix.
You are about to hire your first engineers.
I write the role, run the technical interviews and tell you who can actually do the work, so your first hire is not a guess.
Everyone says you need AI, and nobody can say where.
I find the places AI pays for itself and build those. If a rule, a report or a change to the process would solve it better, I will say so.
Investors or a big customer are asking technical questions.
Architecture, security, data handling, the roadmap. I prepare the answers and sit in the room for diligence.
Ways to work together
Start small. Keep going if it is working.
Start here
Technical audit
About two weeks. I review your code, infrastructure, vendors and team, then walk you through a written report: what works, what is at risk, and the next three things to do, in order.
Good for: a v1 built by someone else, a pending raise, or a decision you cannot make without a second opinion.
Ongoing
Fractional CTO
A fixed number of days each month as your technical lead. I own the roadmap and architecture, work with your developers or agency every week, hire, and represent the technology to investors and customers.
Good for: founders who need senior judgment every week but not a full-time executive salary yet.
Hands on
Build sprint
I build the thing myself: an MVP, an AI agent connected to your systems, or the piece your team is stuck on. You click through a prototype and approve it before I build it.
You keep the code, the tests and written instructions your team can follow after I leave.
How I work
What you can expect from me.
The writing on this site is how I think about building software that people trust. It is a fair preview of how I will think about yours.
More about mePlain answers.
You should never need to be technical to understand what I recommend, what it costs and what happens if you do nothing.
Outcome first.
I talk with the people who do the work and we agree on the result that matters before anyone writes code.
Tested before anyone relies on it.
Every release is checked before your users see it. AI features are tested against real questions, and a person approves anything that sends, pays or deletes.
Nothing held hostage.
Your accounts, your code, your documentation. The goal is a company that runs well without me.
Latest notes
Notes on building with AI.
Be Careful With the AI Layer Your Product Depends On
When AI is central to the product, model access, data boundaries, routing, cost, and reliability become important infrastructure decisions.
Reliable Agents Need an Operating Model
Prompts help, but reliable AI products need operating rules, review loops, permissions, and failure handling.
Managing AI Agent Work Requires Clear Judgment
As agents take on more execution, the work shifts toward clearer goals, careful review, and accountable decisions.
Next step
Tell me what you are building.
A few sentences is enough: what the product does, who built it so far, and the decision in front of you. I will tell you whether I can help and what I would look at first.