About
Engineer, founder, and chronic shipper
I'm Irfan Ullah, a full-stack engineer based in Pakistan, working with clients across North America, Europe, and Asia. For years I've built the systems businesses actually run on: SaaS platforms, mobile apps for field teams, payment flows, and the backend plumbing underneath.
These days a lot of my work is AI engineering — and not the slideware kind. I founded SpaceBrain, a platform where AI voice agents answer real business phone calls 24/7. Running an AI product in production — latency budgets, RAG quality, billing webhooks, observability — is the most honest teacher I've had.
The other thread in my work is software for hard environments: Urdu voice assistants for vaccination field teams, monitoring apps for public-health programs, tools that have to work on a cheap phone with one bar of signal. That kind of work strips away vanity. Either it works for the person in the field, or it doesn't.
Principles
What I believe
Boring is a feature
The best production system is one nobody thinks about. I optimize for predictability over cleverness — clever code is what pages you at 2am.
Real-world constraints first
I've built for patchy networks, mid-range Android phones, and users in the field. Software that only works in ideal conditions doesn't work.
Operate what you build
I deploy, monitor, and maintain my own systems. That feedback loop — feeling your own operational mistakes — is the fastest way to become a better engineer.
Honesty over hype
If an AI feature won't actually help your product, I'll say so. Long-term trust is worth more than one invoice.
Next step
Have a project that needs to actually ship?
Tell me what you're building. I'll reply within one working day with an honest take on scope, timeline, and whether I'm the right person for it.