Dubai, UAE

Senior Software Engineer

Building productsend to end.

Across AI, fintech, commerce, and real-time operations—spanning React interfaces, Node.js APIs, secure identity, AI workflows and agents, and deployment pipelines.

AI products & agentsWeb apps & APIsDeployment & CI/CD

Experience across

Emirates NBDai71CareemThe White Boutique

Product work

Selected work

Products and systems across AI, fintech, commerce, and real-time operations.

ai71

Slidez — AI Presentation Platform

An AI-powered browser platform for creating and editing structured presentations.

View contribution summary

Contributions

  • Built React and Vite editor experiences plus Node.js and Express CRUD APIs.
  • Worked with Craft.js and Lexical for AI-assisted presentation creation and editing.
  • Delivered themes, internationalization, responsive UI, custom authentication migration, and AI-assisted image generation/editing.

Impact

Improved maintainability, scalability, and user experience across devices.

ReactTypeScriptViteOpenAINode.jsExpressCraft.jsLexical
Secure

Emirates NBD

Wealth & Marketplace Experiences

Secure product delivery across wealth, internal marketplace, marketing-content tooling, and identity journeys in a regulated banking environment.

Key contributions

  • Built wealth portfolio and internally used marketplace features with React, Material UI, and Sitecore.
  • Implemented enterprise authentication and identity integrations across secure access flows.
  • Delivered an AI-assisted marketing-content workflow and expanded automated coverage with Jest and Playwright.

Impact

Confidential product work — details intentionally kept high level.

ReactTypeScriptMaterial UISitecoreMSAL / SSOJestPlaywrightGenAI
View contribution summary

Munch:ON · Acquired by Careem

Real-Time Delivery Operations Platform

Operational dashboards for live order tracking, driver visibility, and delivery decision-making.

Key contributions

  • Built scalable, data-heavy dashboard and web experiences with Next.js, React Virtualized, and React Table.
  • Developed a Birds Eye View map using react-map-gl and Mapbox for live driver activity.
  • Contributed to Node.js services and internal APIs supporting delivery workflows.

Impact

Supported 3,000 deliveries per day. Contributed to a dashboard solution associated with 9% month-over-month growth and approximately $8K/month in savings.

Next.jsReactReact VirtualizedReact Tablereact-map-glMapboxNode.js
Read case study

Careem

An Uber company during my tenure

Platform Quality & Delivery Improvements

Engineering work focused on improving frontend delivery, CI/CD, deployment reliability, code quality, testing, and performance across internal products.

Key contributions

  • Contributed to migrating GitLab and Jenkins pipelines to GitHub Actions.
  • Took an Angular frontend service from initial development to Kubernetes deployment and integrated SonarQube quality checks.
  • Dockerized React and Angular applications for EC2 deployment, improved automated testing and Lighthouse performance, and mentored junior engineers.

Impact

Contributed to Careem’s GitHub Actions migration, helping move 81% of targeted repositories and save approximately $35K in infrastructure costs.

Improved frontend quality across internal products by increasing test coverage from 22% to 60% in Engagement Management and from 31% to 70% in Captain Portal. Also improved Lighthouse performance by 45% and 20% across two services.

AngularReactGitHub ActionsKubernetesDockerSonarQubeEC2Lighthouse
View experience summary

The White Boutique

Commerce Platform Migration

Migration from WordPress to a custom Next.js gifting platform, with reusable UI, cloud deployment, and CI/CD workflows.

Key contributions

  • Led development, maintenance, and deployment of a gifting e-commerce platform.
  • Migrated the storefront from WordPress to a custom TypeScript-based Next.js application.
  • Built reusable UI foundations, shared state patterns, and Docker/GitHub Actions deployment workflows on AWS.

Impact

Helped establish a maintainable commerce platform supporting 3M AED in monthly sales.

Next.jsTypeScriptTailwindCSSAWSDockerGitHub ActionsS3Elastic Beanstalk
Read case study

Independent projects

Projects built outside work

Open-source tools exploring local-first AI workflows, developer tooling, and practical product engineering.

Open-source project · Local-first AI workflow

CV Match Agent

A production-oriented TypeScript CLI that compares a CV against a job description, generates a realistic match assessment, and creates practical application assets directly from the terminal.

Key capabilities

  • Reads Markdown, plain-text, and text-based PDF CVs, then creates a structured reusable candidate profile.
  • Extracts job requirements and compares them against experience, skills, projects, achievements, and location when available.
  • Generates a match report, CV improvements, LinkedIn outreach, a cover letter, and interview-preparation notes.
  • Uses schema validation, output review, repair attempts, and debug artifacts to keep AI-generated output inspectable and grounded.

Local-first by design

Runs locally with no frontend, database, authentication system, or remote app server. Ollama keeps supplied CV and job content on the local machine; OpenAI mode sends only the provided content to the OpenAI API.

Node.jsTypeScriptOpenAI Responses APIOllamaZodCLIText-based PDF parsingLocal context
cv-match-agent
01

Input

CV file · Job description

02

Structure

Semantic sections · Candidate profile

03

Analyze

Match · strengths · gaps

04

Generate

CV improvements · outreach · cover letter · interview prep

05

Output

match-report.md · cover-letter.txt · interview-prep.md

How I build

Clear systems, careful execution, and interfaces that hold up under real product pressure.

Product Foundations

Web applications, APIs, and shared systems designed to stay maintainable as products grow.

Complex User Workflows

Editors, dashboards, real-time operations, secure identity flows, and data-heavy interfaces.

AI-Enabled Product Features

LLM-powered assistants, streaming AI interactions, prompt-driven workflows, AI image generation, and agentic product experiences.

Reliable Delivery

Automated testing, CI/CD, deployment workflows, accessibility, code review, and cross-functional delivery.

Core toolkit

Frontend

React · Next.js · TypeScript · Angular

Backend & AI

Node.js · Express · OpenAI APIs · AI workflows & agents

Delivery & Infrastructure

AWS · Docker · GitHub Actions · Kubernetes · CI/CD

Quality & Engineering

Jest · Playwright · SonarQube · Lighthouse · Accessibility

AI-assisted development workflows with Claude Code and Codex, used in product delivery.

Experience

A career across fintech, AI products, commerce, and real-time operations.

View full experience details →
Aug 2025 — Present

Senior Software Engineer

Emirates NBD

Building secure wealth and internal marketplace experiences, identity integrations, GenAI assistance, and automated quality coverage.

Sep 2024 — Jul 2025

Software Engineer II

ai71

Contributed to Slidez, an AI presentation platform, across editor workflows, Node.js APIs, custom authentication, internationalization, streaming AI, and image workflows.

Nov 2023 — Aug 2024

Founding Software Engineer

The White Boutique

Led the migration of a gifting platform from WordPress to Next.js, with reusable UI foundations, AWS deployment, and CI/CD workflows.

Jul 2023 — Oct 2023

Software Engineer II

Careem

An Uber company during my tenure

Took an Angular frontend service through Kubernetes deployment, added CI/CD and SonarQube checks, improved test coverage, and supported junior engineers.

Jul 2022 — Jun 2023

Software Engineer I

Careem

An Uber company during my tenure

Contributed to the GitLab/Jenkins → GitHub Actions migration, improved test coverage and Lighthouse performance, and supported frontend reliability and on-call work.

Recognition · Careem Engineering Excellence Award (2023)

Jul 2020 — Jun 2022

Software Engineer

Munch:ON · Acquired by Careem

Built real-time delivery operations dashboards, live driver-map experiences, and internal APIs supporting high-volume delivery workflows.

Selected recognition

Recognition beyond delivery

A few moments of recognition, technical contribution, and knowledge-sharing alongside product work.

01

Careem Engineering Excellence Award · 2023

Recognised for contribution to the GitHub Actions migration and engineering-quality work.

02

Google Foobar Challenge

Participated in Google’s Foobar programming challenge.

03

Micro-Frontends Learning Session · Careem Falcons

Led an internal learning session on micro-frontend architecture and engineering practices.

About

Syed Asad Abrar profile portrait

Senior Software Engineer · Dubai

I build products across fintech, AI, commerce, and real-time operations. My deepest expertise is frontend architecture, backed by hands-on work with Node.js APIs, secure identity, AI-powered features, testing, and deployment.

Across Emirates NBD, ai71, Careem, Munch:ON, and The White Boutique, I’ve contributed to secure banking journeys, AI creation tools, high-volume delivery operations, and commerce migrations. I use Claude Code and Codex to accelerate execution while keeping architecture and product decisions grounded in hands-on engineering judgment.

Dubai, UAE · Product engineering · AI & fintech

Contact

Let's build something useful.

Open to senior product engineering roles, full-stack product work, AI-enabled product teams, and selected contract engagements.

Product engineeringAI-enabled workflowsPlatform quality & delivery
syedasadabrar@gmail.com