I ship complex technology into the real world.

Solutions, Deployment & Applied-AI Technologist

I'm Waheed Zarif — a PMP-certified engineer-operator with 14 years turning hardware-meets-software products into deployed, adopted, dependable reality. I work where most people don't: the seam between the physical (IoT, sensors, building systems), the digital (cloud, SaaS, and hands-on AI), and the customer.

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.

Agile Risk Mangement

Agile Risk Mangement

In the age of AI and geopolitical instability (tariffs), traditional risk management needs to evolve and adopt agile processes.