MUHAMMAD WAJIH UZ ZAMAN — SOFTWARE ENGINEER & SYSTEMS ANALYST

Between raw data and a reliable AI answer sits one missing layer — I build it.

I work where knowledge graphs, retrieval-augmented generation, and enterprise data converge — turning scattered, inconsistent systems into something an AI can reason over correctly, and prove it did. Full-stack engineering background, systems-analyst rigor, now going deep on what I call the Knowledge Layer.

📍 Islamabad, Pakistan — open to Riyadh, Germany/EU, and remote 🕐 7+ years in production systems 🔗 Senior Software Engineer @ salestech Data & AI
extracted entity — ungrounded
resolved & grounded knowledge
HOW A KNOWLEDGE LAYER GETS BUILT

Four stages between chaos and a grounded answer

This is the architecture pattern I've built hands-on, in production — the same core shape you'll find under most serious enterprise AI-grounding platforms today.

01

Ontology first

Competency questions define the domain's ontology before a line of extraction code is written. SHACL constraints validate it; it's versioned and git-tagged like any other production artifact.

OWL · SHACL
02

Schema-constrained extraction

Language models extract entities and relationships against that ontology's schema — not into an open vocabulary. The model can't invent a relationship type the domain doesn't define.

Structured LLM Output
03

Entity resolution

Exact-match normalization first, then embedding-cosine similarity. Auto-merge above ~0.92, human review between 0.80–0.92. Nothing gets silently duplicated or silently merged.

Two-Tier Resolution
04

Deterministic retrieval

A templated query layer sits between the model and the graph. The AI can request evidence — it can never author an arbitrary raw query against production data.

Grounded, Not Guessed
THIS ISN'T SPECULATIVE

Two different companies are betting on the same layer

I track this space closely — not as a trend, but because real, funded companies are already commercializing the exact architecture pattern above, at two different scales.

Broad enterprise platform

Squirro

A modular GenAI agent platform: knowledge graphs and semantic search as core infrastructure beneath a catalog of pre-built agents. Philosophy — "connect once, govern once, reuse everywhere." Land on one high-friction use case, expand from there.

CLIENTS — Henkel · Siemens · OCBC Bank · Bertelsmann
Vertical specialist

Digitiers

Brands itself "The Knowledge Layer Company." Builds an RDF/OWL semantic layer purpose-built to ground AI agents in premium industrial and automotive engineering environments.

CLIENTS — Porsche · CARIAD · STIHL

"The Knowledge Layer thesis isn't a bet I'm making alone — it's already being commercialized at enterprise scale and at vertical depth. I've built the same core pattern hands-on, in a live engagement."

WHERE THE WORK HAS SHIPPED

Track record

Full-stack delivery, enterprise integration, and now AI-grounded knowledge systems — for named clients, with measurable outcomes.

2025 — Present
salestech Data & AI
Senior Software Engineer
  • Designing and building a Knowledge/Data Connectivity Layer — validated across legal, energy, and a real enterprise deployment; benchmarked against approaches like Squirro's GraphRAG.
  • Built SmartReply for Ferrero/Nutella — a Chrome extension + FastAPI service surfacing AI-suggested replies from a fine-tuned Azure OpenAI model, with a strict human-in-the-loop send flow.
  • Benchmarked Keycloak federation and OIDC flows for Siemens Energy under Gatling load testing, clearing the path to production approval.
  • Eliminated a horizontal-scaling blocker in StayX GmbH's microservices backend by migrating an in-memory, per-instance lobby-timer state into a centralized Redis layer (TTL-backed keys, Pub/Sub channels) — giving every pod a single consistent source of truth and unlocking true horizontal scale.
  • Architected an agentic framework that reads legacy codebases and generates migration strategy, architecture diagrams, and ADRs.
2024 — 2025
NESL-IT
Operations Manager, Austin TX (Remote)
  • Designed a CQRS-based live monitoring dashboard for utility-consumption data, using Kafka and RabbitMQ for real-time event ingestion and Entity Framework Core for the data layer.
2022 — 2024
Cloud Valley KSA
Senior Software Engineer | Agile PMP — Enterprise Applications, Riyadh
  • Led the digital transformation of Qoot Al Hijaz Foods — ERP implementation, infrastructure, and training.
  • Led the modernization of a legacy ASP.NET Web Forms monolith into a microservices architecture behind a YARP API gateway — using Kafka and RabbitMQ for interservice communication and centralized logging — cutting downtime by 40%.
  • Built Power BI forecasting dashboards, improving reporting accuracy by 25%.
2021 — 2025
ITROOS (Pvt) Limited
Remote Consultant — full-time 2021–2022, part-time consulting 2022–2025
  • Retained as a part-time remote consultant after the initial full-time role, most recently leading Cybersecurity DLP deployments for clients including PepsiCo (2025).
  • Earlier engagements: application support for Coca-Cola İçecek's contract system (2022–2025); and, as a full-time engineer (2021–2022), architected a telecom O&M system as a modular monolith (EF Core, Hangfire) and, separately, an end-to-end microservices ecosystem for a confidential client product (YARP API gateway, heavy third-party integrations).
OUTSIDE THE DAY JOB

Independent builds

Full production systems, built solo — the same rigor as client work, applied to problems I picked myself.

BiltyOS

A logistics OS for Pakistan's transport/"bilty" ecosystem — event-driven parcel state, offline-first sync, admin dashboard, and a driver mobile app.

NestJSNext.jsReact NativePostgres

Todoke

A bid-based delivery marketplace for the Japanese market — order → bid → accept → payment → delivery → rating, built toward APPI and Freelancers Act compliance.

.NET 9SignalRHangfireExpo

Conjugation LMS

Contributed institute multi-tenancy, an XP/leaderboard engine, and custom quiz authoring to an Arabic-morphology learning platform.

FastAPIPostgresAlembic
Contributor — not repo owner

Epidemic Simulation Platform

SIR/SEIR disease-spread modeling with Bayesian and evolutionary optimization, streamed live to a scientific visualization dashboard.

FastAPINumPy/SciPyOptunaNext.js
Kept private

Restaurant POS

A Kitchen Display System and table-side POS on ERPNext, with real-time sync and independent per-split bill settlement.

FrappeERPNextRedis

Halal Scan App

Scans a product barcode, cross-references Open Food Facts, and runs a rule-based ingredient engine to classify Halal status on the spot.

React NativeTypeScripti18next
THE BASE THE SPECIALTY STANDS ON

Foundations

The Knowledge Layer work doesn't sit on nothing — it sits on a decade-adjacent range across full-stack engineering, enterprise systems, and delivery leadership.

Backend & APIs
Java · Spring Boot · .NET Core · gRPC · Entity Framework Core · FastAPI · REST
Distributed Systems & Messaging
Microservices · CQRS · Kafka · RabbitMQ · YARP (API Gateway) · Hangfire
Frontend & Mobile
React · React Native · Vue.js · Expo · TypeScript
Data & Databases
PostgreSQL · MS SQL Server · Neo4j · Redis · SQLite
Cloud & DevOps
Azure · Docker · Kubernetes (Intermediate) · CI/CD
Security & Compliance
Data Loss Prevention · Zero Trust · OIDC/Keycloak · GDPR / EU AI Act awareness
Enterprise & Leadership
ERP (SAP, ERPNext) · Agile delivery · Cross-functional team leadership
LET'S TALK

If your AI keeps guessing, we should talk about the layer underneath it.