About
I'm Karan. I build things — AI agents, products, systems that need to work under real load — and I think out loud about it here.
The short version
I graduated from BITS Pilani with a CS degree and walked into Capgemini debugging Disney's booking system at 3am. That was the job. I liked the detective work of it — tracing API calls through Splunk logs until I found the thing that actually broke.
Turns out that's most of what I do, still. Systems go wrong for boring reasons. The interesting work is figuring out which boring reason this time.
After Capgemini I moved into product — UpGrad, AlmaBetter, then Miles Education — building the infrastructure underneath growth teams: CRM pipelines, attribution, lifecycle automation, a scheduling microservice, 90+ n8n workflows that quietly eliminated 80+ hours of manual work a week. I shipped, I fixed, I wrote a lot of SOPs.
Late 2025, I left to build. I wanted to work on AI-native products where the interesting problem isn't the prompt — it's the system around the prompt. Quality gates, cost controls, graceful failure modes, the stuff that separates a demo from a product.
That's where I am now. Building Job Search Agent, The Third Place, and taking consulting work for founders who need a systems thinker who can actually ship.
What I believe
Most problems aren't technical.
They're integration problems, data problems, handoff problems. The code usually works. The system around it doesn't. When a CRM pipeline “stops working,” it's rarely the CRM — it's five different tools disagreeing about what a lead is.
Autonomy needs guardrails.
Especially for AI. I don't trust a system that can do anything — I trust a system that can't do the wrong thing. Eval gates, cost caps, edit regions, confidence thresholds. These aren't limits on what AI can do. They're what make shipping it honest.
Ship it, then measure.
I've seen too many roadmaps die in review cycles. The work of a builder is closing the gap between “this should work” and “this does work, for real users.” Instrument first, ship early, tune based on evidence.
Work and home aren't enough.
Everyone needs a third place. Mine are two: a motorcycle and a camera. That conviction is why I'm building MyThirdPlace — a platform for people to find theirs.
Outside of shipping
I ride with a small group of people who've turned weekend routes around Bangalore into something more intentional — we call it The Handlebar Dialogue. Saturday we plan, brief, and check the bikes. Sunday we ride. It's as much about the conversations between stops as it is the road.
I volunteered with U&I Trust for three years — teaching underprivileged children, then running a center from scratch with 40+ volunteers. It's where I learned that management is mostly removing obstacles so other people can do their best work.
I shoot photos, mostly street and light studies. I read a lot about product, systems, and the occasional history book. I live in Bangalore.
If any of this resonates —
I'm open to AI product roles, consulting engagements, or just a conversation with someone building something interesting.