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About

From Help Center themes to production AI.

I wire LLMs into real systems and real data, then make the result hold up in production.

Asif Iqbal, portrait

Asif Iqbal · AI Engineer

Founder, Adommo ↗

Dhaka, Bangladesh · GMT+6

I’ve been engineering since 2012.

From 2017 to 2024 I was at Upwork, on a marketplace serving millions of users. I led Zendesk, Help Center, and Support Chatbot engineering, as Engineering Lead from 2021 with a team of 3. I owned the chatbot platforms: Ada from 2017 to 2021, then Forethought until 2024.

I engineered the Forethought–Zendesk integration behind the 58% chatbot resolution rate published in Zendesk’s Upwork customer story.

Much of that came down to wiring: I connected the bot to Upwork’s GraphQL layer and Zendesk Guide, so it answered with live account context rather than generic help-center text.

Elsewhere in the stack, I replaced a four-hourly tag job with live GraphQL data, which cut Zendesk API usage by 60% (internal estimate), and engineered the Help Center theme framework across eight redesigns, helping lift self-service resolution from 80% to 96% (internal estimate).

How I approach engineering leadership: calm and methodical when systems get complex, transparent with cross-functional partners, and relentlessly focused on keeping the architecture simple so teams ship without friction.

Since September 2024 I’ve been building on my own: Finch, a RAG support chatbot that’s still in development, and open-source tools for AI coding agents. That’s where the thesis comes from — AI fails at the wiring, not the model. See the work →

Experience

  1. Founder & Principal Engineer · Adommo

    • Building Finch, a RAG support chatbot (in development).
    • Open-source tools for AI coding agents: Zendesk Skills, Sync Skills, Vibe Code Ninja.

  2. Engineering Lead · Upwork

    • Led Zendesk, Help Center, and Support Chatbot engineering with a team of 3.
    • 58% chatbot resolution rate via the Forethought–Zendesk integration. Zendesk story ↗
    • 90% code coverage via unit testing and CI/CD.
    • 30% less onboarding time via documentation standards.
    • 60% less Zendesk API usage (internal estimate) by replacing a four-hourly tag job with live GraphQL data.

  3. Senior Software Engineer · Upwork

    • 70% higher CS agent productivity (internal estimate) via internal Zendesk agent apps.
    • Three-way messaging model for dispute cases on Zendesk side conversations, built with Zendesk’s API team.
    • 25% less deployment time via CI/CD optimisation.
    • Led the development team for Upwork’s $1M COVID-19 talent grant program “Work Together”, shipped in one week.
    • Contributed to the cross-functional engineering team that launched Upwork’s Project Catalog product line.

  4. Software Engineer · Upwork

    • Built the Help Center theme framework across eight launches, boosting self-service resolution from 80% to 96% (internal estimate).
    • Integrated Ada, Upwork’s first support chatbot, with Zendesk and custom real-time routing.

Chatbot platforms ownedAda, 2017–2021 · Forethought, 2021–2024

Before Upwork

  • Dynamic Web Laboratory — Senior Software EngineerMay 2015 – Feb 2017
  • dA Tomato Ltd — Senior Software EngineerJun 2014 – Apr 2015
  • Dexter’s Web Laboratory — Software EngineerSep 2013 – May 2014
  • Kurinur Web Technologies Ltd. — Junior Software EngineerNov 2012 – Aug 2013

Stack

Languages
Python · TypeScript · JavaScript / Node.js · PHP
Frontend
React · Next.js · Vue
AI / LLM
OpenAI · Claude · Gemini · Ollama · LiteLLM · Langfuse · MCP (server + client) · RAG · n8n
Data
PostgreSQL + pgvector · Supabase
Infrastructure
Docker · Terraform · Nomad / Consul / Vault · AWS · GCP
Platforms
Zendesk (API, Guide, apps) · Forethought · Ada

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