---
title: "Ali Zahir - Software Engineer in Dubai | Tal"
description: "Meet Ali Zahir, Software Engineer @ Kendal AI | Founding Engineer @ Volume | Building AI-Driven Systems & Full-Stack Products based in Dubai. AI stack includes claude code, claude, and cursor."
image: "https://tal.club/meet/ali-zahir/share-image"
---

# Ali Zahir on Tal

## Headline

Software Engineer @ Kendal AI \| Founding Engineer @ Volume \| Building AI\-Driven Systems & Full\-Stack Products

## About

Hi 👋 I’m a full\-stack software engineer focused on building production systems end\-to\-end—taking ideas from concept to something real that users interact with daily\. At Kendal AI, I’ve been working on an AI\-powered real estate CRM, building scalable backend systems, automation pipelines, and communication workflows \(including WhatsApp and call intelligence\) that handle real\-world data at scale\. This has pushed me to think deeply about performance, system design, and reliability\. Previously, I was a founding engineer at Volume Stories, where I helped build and scale a content platform to \~100K users\. I worked across the stack on content delivery, personalization, and user experience—learning how to ship fast while maintaining quality in production\. I approach problems from both a user and engineering perspective—what should this feel like, and how do we build it to scale? I care about clean, efficient systems and pixel\-perfect UI, and I’m not afraid to dive into things I don’t know until I understand them deeply\. Lately, I’ve been building with AI and sharpening my backend engineering skills, constantly exploring how to turn ideas into scalable products faster and more efficiently\.

## Location

Dubai

## AI stack

claude code

claude

cursor

## Work experience

Software Engineer at Kendal, Feb 2025 \- Present · 1 yr 10 mos, Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Worked on Kendal AI, an AI\-driven platform transforming real estate workflows by automating lead qualification, follow\-ups, and CRM operations—helping brokerages focus on closing deals instead of admin work\. 1\. Architected and scaled a production\-grade real estate CRM platform, centralizing listings, contacts, deals, and communication workflows for brokerage teams 2\. Designed and implemented a WhatsApp Business platform using Meta APIs, enabling automated messaging, bot workflows, and scalable communication infrastructure 3\. Built an AI\-powered call intelligence pipeline using OpenAI Whisper and GPT\-4o to extract lead intent, sentiment, transcripts, and actionable insights from call recordings 4\. Engineered an asynchronous event\-driven pipeline using Django, Celery, Redis, and PostgreSQL to process external call data and reliably sync it into CRM systems 5\. Developed a scalable Elasticsearch\-based search system with permission\-aware filtering and custom query builders, improving performance and secure data access 6\. Designed lead ingestion and automation pipelines across multiple real estate platforms in UAE with deduplication, queueing, and real\-time processing

Founding Software Engineer at Volume, May 2021 \- Jul 2023 · 2 yrs 3 mos, Bengaluru, A platform for reading and listening to bite\-sized content \(book summaries, articles, illustrated magazines\) 1\. Joined as a founding member of the engineering team, contributing across the full stack to build and scale the product from the ground up\. 2\. Architected and managed end\-to\-end content pipelines for ingestion, metadata processing, and delivery across text, image, and audio formats, ensuring a seamless and high\-performance user experience\. 3\. Designed and implemented scalable backend systems to handle user authentication, engagement tracking \(likes, views\), and interest profiling; contributed to building a personalized content recommendation feed\. 4\. Integrated subscription\-based monetization using RevenueCat, including multiple pricing tiers\. 5\. Built a dynamic server\-driven UI system \(“Banner System”\) to push real\-time UI updates and personalized content to mobile applications without requiring app releases\. 6\. Collaborated closely with cross\-functional teams to ship features rapidly while maintaining performance, reliability, and a high\-quality user experience\. Impact: 1\. Scaled the mobile application to \~100K downloads with a 4\.5\+ rating on app stores 2\. Generated significant early\-stage revenue \(in the range of several lakhs\)

## Education

Masters, Computer Science, Illinois Institute of Technology

Bachelor's degree, Computer Engineering, Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology

[View the original profile](https://tal.club/meet/ali-zahir)

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