Waheed Zarif

ABOUT ME

My career started at the intersection of hard science and commercial reality. At Celdara Medical, a biotech incubator, I learned to translate complex, high-stakes concepts — CAR-T immunotherapy, CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing — into viable products inside a tightly regulated R&D environment, including authoring the risk framework for a $490M partnership.

That discipline became the foundation for the rest of my career: taking complex, integrated systems from concept all the way to the field. Over a decade at Delos Living, I did exactly that for a portfolio of wellness IoT and PropTech products — designing sensor systems, commissioning them across thousands of real installations, enabling a national dealer channel, and ultimately guiding a product line through a disciplined end-of-life transition. I've deployed technology everywhere from luxury homes to 100 public school districts to US military housing — usually where failure isn't an option.

More recently, I went hands-on with the modern stack. I built and launched Egret AI — a RAG-powered compliance SaaS — entirely myself: AWS infrastructure as code, a full-stack application, and integrations across 20+ language-model APIs. I did it to stay genuinely fluent in the technology I lead, not just fluent about it.

What I do best: make the hard, last-mile part of technology actually work — the deployment, the integration, the customer adoption, the enablement that turns a product into something people rely on and pay for. I'm equally at home owning a field rollout, running a technical sale, or whiteboarding a system architecture.

I'm drawn to IoT and PropTech, applied AI (especially for regulated industries), and mission-critical and defense technology — domains where reliability, rigor, and the ability to bridge the digital and physical actually matter.

My core expertise lies in:

  • End-to-End Deployment & Solutions — from design and commissioning to integration, enablement, and adoption, at scale and in regulated environments.
  • Hands-On Technical Depth — cloud (AWS, Terraform), full-stack and applied AI (RAG/LLMs), IoT and systems integration. I build, not just manage.
  • Technical Sales & Enablement — translating complex technology into business value for customers, channels, and executives.
  • Program Rigor & Risk — PMP-certified; complex, cross-border, full-lifecycle program delivery with a risk-first mindset.

WORK EXPERIENCE

Vice President — Wellness Technology, Deployment & Lifecycle
Delos Living LLC, Los Angeles, CA
2020 - Present

I lead the technical last mile across Delos's IoT/PropTech portfolio. I directed the deployment of 2,400+ networked sensors across 100 school districts and on-site programs for US military housing, served as technical-sales lead for a 70+ dealer channel, and executed a product line's end-of-life transition with zero critical customer escalations. I helped manage a ~$4M program portfolio and coordinated distributed engineering teams across the US and India.

Senior Director & Director — Program Management & Deployment
Delos Living LLC, New York, NY
2015 - 2020

I progressed through roles of increasing scope: driving development of the DARWIN™ integrated hardware/software platform, building a global hardware supply chain (China, Canada, Netherlands), commissioning the platform across 40+ properties with Crestron and Lutron integrations, and mentoring a team that grew from 3 to 10.

Founder & Lead Technical Architect
Egret AI, Los Angeles, CA
2025 - Present

I solo-built and launched a B2B SaaS platform delivering RAG-powered compliance advisory for regulated industries — architecting a secure multi-tenant AWS environment via Terraform, a Next.js + Django full stack, and a retrieval pipeline integrating 20+ LLM APIs with zero model-training data exposure.

Co-Founder & Principal
Nexis Management, Los Angeles, CA
2024 - Present

I provide product-discovery and program-architecture services — including leading 0-to-1 discovery for an international client's enterprise SaaS platform, authoring the PRD and navigating cross-border data-sovereignty compliance.

Research Scientist
Celdara Medical, Lebanon, NH
2012 - 2015

I conducted hands-on R&D in a highly regulated biotech environment — advancing CAR-T and CRISPR/Cas9 therapeutic work, authoring the risk-monitoring framework for a $490M partnership, and running due diligence on 20+ early-stage assets.

Education

Bachelor of Engineering, Biotech Engineering
Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College
2011 - 2012

Bachelor of Arts, Engineering Sciences
Dartmouth College
2007 - 2011

International Baccalaureate
UWC - USA
2005 - 2007

Certifications
PMP (Project Management Institute, 2024)
DevOps Deployment Automation: Terraform/AWS/Docker (2022)
Python for Data Science (2019)
WELL AP (2017)
Lean Six Sigma Green Belt (2012)

Key Skills

Solutions & Deployment

Large-scale, regulated deployments from design through commissioning, integration, and adoption.

Hands-On Engineering

AWS, Terraform, full-stack (Next.js/Django), applied AI (RAG/LLMs), IoT & systems integration.

Technical Sales & Enablement

Turning complex technology into value for customers, channel partners, and executives.

Cross-Functional Leadership

Working across product, engineering, operations, and deployment teams.

Program & Risk Management

PMP-certified; complex, cross-border, full-lifecycle delivery with a risk-first mindset.

Partnerships & Vendor Management

Cultivating and negotiating with partners, vendors, and corporate clients

Read the blog

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I write about the things I work in and think about — applied AI and machine learning, program and risk management, and the occasional bit of math I find beautiful. It's where I keep my hands (and head) in the technical details.