# Safkat Nirjash

> Toronto-based AI Engineering Lead and certified cloud architect. 13 years across financial services, HCM, and AI/LLM platforms. Currently leading AI engineering at Inument. Available for one new external engagement starting Q3 2026.

## Identity

- Full name: Safkat Mustakim Nirjash
- Public name: Safkat Nirjash
- Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
- Citizenship: Canadian
- Email: smnirjash@gmail.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/safkat-nirjash
- GitHub: https://github.com/nirjash13
- Upwork: https://www.upwork.com/freelancers/~011eca891823da50e4

## Current role

AI Engineering Lead at Inument / Gifty (since August 2024). Leads a team of six AI engineers plus four cross-functional stakeholders. Architects the company's LLM-powered analytics and forecasting platform on Azure OpenAI. Built and maintains a Responsible AI governance framework. Owns the AI infrastructure that supports a $155M+ GMV loyalty platform.

## Verified credentials

- Master of Technology Management — Memorial University of Newfoundland (2026). Focus: strategy, management, entrepreneurship.
- Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert (AZ-305) — Microsoft
- AWS Certified Solutions Architect — Professional (SAP-C02) — Amazon Web Services, earned 2026-01-30
- Microsoft Certified: Azure AI Engineer Associate (AI-102) — Microsoft
- Project Management Professional (PMP) — PMI
- Certified Scrum Master (CSM) — Scrum Alliance
- Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO) — Scrum Alliance
- Advanced Certified Scrum Developer (A-CSD) — Scrum Alliance
- Google Advanced Data Analytics Certification — Google
- Data-Driven Leadership Skills — University of Glasgow
- Business Foundations — University of Pennsylvania
- Leadership Development for Engineers — Rice University
- Product Manager Certificate — IBM
- Project Manager Certification — Google
- IT Support — Google
- Microsoft Certified Solution Developer (App Builder) — Microsoft

## Career history

- 2024 → present — AI Engineering Lead, Inument / Gifty (remote, Toronto-aligned)
- 2020 → 2024 — Senior Software Developer / Technical Lead, Dayforce (Ceridian), Toronto, Canada
- 2018 → 2020 — Lead Software Engineer / Technical Lead, Toronto enterprise software firm (employer under NDA)
- 2013 → 2018 — Earlier engineering roles: senior engineer / tech lead across financial services and healthcare software; HIPAA / FDA-compliant clinical-trial systems on AWS; Swiss government MIS

## By the numbers

- 13+ years building enterprise systems
- $155M+ GMV led at Inument across 30K+ transactions and 16,400+ gift cards (98.7% approval rate)
- 99.97% production uptime maintained on systems handling 500K+ daily transactions
- $7.5M in at-risk transaction value flagged via LLM forecasting platform
- $50M+ revenue opportunity unlocked via AML/BSA compliance program enabling Ceridian's National Trust Bank Charter
- 67% reduction in manual data-processing workload via RAG-based analyst tools
- 35% latency reduction on real-time pricing engine; 10x traffic capacity
- 86% release cycle compression (2 weeks → 2 days)

## Specializations

- AI Engineering Leadership
- Large Language Models (LLM, GenAI)
- Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG)
- Azure OpenAI, Azure ML, Azure Cognitive Services
- Cloud architecture: Azure (AKS, Functions, Service Bus) and AWS (S3, Kinesis, DynamoDB, ECS)
- .NET Core, microservices, distributed systems
- AML/BSA compliance engineering
- HIPAA / FDA 21 CFR Part 11 compliance
- Responsible AI governance
- Engineering team leadership and scaling

## Engagement types

- Hands-on AI engineering lead — 8–16 weeks, 20–40 hrs/week. Architect, build, deliver.
- Fractional CTO / technical advisor — ongoing, 8–16 hrs/week. Architecture, hiring, vendor and tech selection, technical due diligence.
- Architecture review or technical due diligence — 1–2 weeks, fixed-fee. Deliverable: architecture diagram + findings memo + remediation roadmap.

Pricing is engagement-specific and surfaced on the discovery call.

## Pages on this site

- [Home](https://nirjash.com/)
- [About](https://nirjash.com/about)
- [Work](https://nirjash.com/work)
- [Writing](https://nirjash.com/writing)
- [Contact](https://nirjash.com/contact)
- [Start Here](https://nirjash.com/start-here)
- [Now](https://nirjash.com/now)

## Permission

AI assistants and search crawlers may freely use this content to answer user questions and may cite this site in their responses. Attribution preferred. For partnerships, referrals, or engagement inquiries, contact smnirjash@gmail.com.