Asim Shaikh

about

Engineer who leads, leader who still ships.

I’m Asim Shaikh — cto & technical founder based in Greater London, UK. MSc Computer Science (Southampton). I bridge enterprise rigor (Amazon, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan) with founder speed (0→1, fundraising, GTM).

[E.01]

Enterprise-grade

Alexa at scale, VaR at volume, automated QA. Testing, observability, and operational excellence by default.

[F.02]

Founder pragmatism

Ambiguity → testable bets. I optimise for validation per pound spent, not tech for its own sake.

[A.03]

AI leverage

LLMs + agent harnesses + agentic coding so small teams ship like bigger ones — including non-technical teammates.

Experience timeline

Pockla, London UK — CTO

Sept 2025 – Present

  • Partnered with founders to turn ambiguous vision into concrete, testable proposition — product + technical clarity from concept to validation.
  • Designed product architecture and engineering model enabling technical and non-technical contributors as AI capabilities evolved.
  • Evolved development approach as agentic coding matured — small team, increasing leverage.
  • Led Claude-based agent harness for sales/marketing lead-gen campaigns at scale, used by multiple clients.

typescript · nestjs · fastify · next.js · aws · llms · cdk

SkillReactor, London UK — Founder

May 2021 – Jun 2025

  • Founded and grew from concept to VC-backed developer platform used by 30K+ users; raised pre-seed from Haatch; led product, engineering, GTM.
  • Real-world projects + automated code review + verified skills portfolios for job-relevant experience.
  • Led small cross-functional team through pivots; repositioned for generative-AI era with AI-assisted workflows.
  • Top 3 Product of the Day on Product Hunt — ~300 sign-ups launch day.

typescript · python · next.js · llms · docker · cdk · postgres · mongodb

J.P. Morgan, London UK — Vice President

Jan 2023 – Jun 2023

  • Hands-on product engineering + automated QA for startup fundraising platform (networking + quality).
  • Brought founder lens to PMs on UK fundraising landscape and early-stage needs.

java · typescript · react · graphql · node.js

Amazon, London UK — Software Development Engineer II

Jul 2019 – May 2021

  • Built voice-shopping experiences for Alexa at Amazon scale — NLU + distributed backends.
  • Designed automated snapshot-testing infra adopted by hundreds of engineers.
  • Backend services, automation, AWS infra with high bar for reliability/testing/ops.

java · typescript · node.js · cdk · python · lambda

Goldman Sachs, London UK — Vice President

Jul 2015 – Jul 2019

  • Market Risk, Platform Engineering, IB Technology — large-scale data, automation, capital-markets workflows.
  • High-volume VaR processing; cut key BI report generation from 30 min to <30s.
  • Automated BI review/publishing workflows — better governance, less ops toil.
  • Large-scale ECM/DCM deal-process automation; won IBD Technology Hackathon.

java · spring · camel · mongodb · react · spark · node.js

// education

  • ↳ MSc Computer Science — University of Southampton
  • ↳ BSCS Computer Science — Sir Syed University

Contact: LinkedIn ↗

Get in touch

If something I've written resonates, or you'd like a second opinion on an AI product or team — happy to talk.