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About

Zain Akram, in plain terms

I'm Zain Akram, a senior solution architect and full-stack engineer based in Lahore, Pakistan. Since 2018 I've gone from junior developer to the architect responsible for platforms used by tens of thousands of people, mostly for companies in the United States, working their hours from Pakistan.

My work sits in two layers that most teams keep separate. The first is the platform: Laravel, Node.js and NestJS backends, React and Next.js frontends, MySQL and PostgreSQL, AWS and Docker. The second is the AI layer on top of it: retrieval-grounded chatbots, tool-calling agents and MCP servers that act on the same systems safely, with evals and cost control. I build both, and I design the boundary between them.

What I'm known for

  • REConnect: Real estate MLS data platform serving 100+ brokerages and 20,000+ agents, with AI agents handling about 90% of support tickets.
  • TheCareMD: US telemedicine platform with 80,000+ patients and live iOS and Android apps for virtual consultations, prescriptions and lab referrals.
  • Tour27: Travel and tour discovery platform with listings, itineraries, lead capture and an admin CMS.
  • Nowsign & eSignPanda: Enterprise e-signature SaaS with drag-and-drop fields, legally compliant audit trails, dynamic workflows and Stripe payments.
  • Brown Harris Stevens: Agent and client tools for a New York luxury real estate brokerage, plus a Gutenberg plugin with 70+ custom blocks powering its content site.

By the numbers

  • 8+ years, junior to architect
  • 20k+ agents on platforms I lead
  • 80k+ patients served by APIs I built
  • ~90% support tickets handled by AI agents

Where I've worked

  • SL Tech (Streamline Technology), Project Lead Developer (Aug 2025 to Present). Real estate SaaS and AI agents for US brokerages.
  • Comlink Total Solutions, Lead Software Engineer (Jan 2023 to Aug 2025). Telecom and federal program CRM.
  • ArhamSoft (Pvt) Ltd (Dec 2018 to Jan 2023). Software house delivering healthcare, travel and enterprise products.
  • CybexTech, Jr. Software Engineer (May 2018 to Dec 2018). First engineering role.

Credentials

Master of Computer Science, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad (2017 to 2021). Certifications: AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate; Certified Laravel Developer; Micro1 Certified Engineer; Cisco CCNA Cyber Ops.

How I work

I write the architecture down before the code, ship in thin production-shaped slices, test the paths that lose money when they break, and measure AI features by cost per resolved task rather than tokens. The decision records on the home page show that thinking on real projects, and the blog goes deeper.

About this site

Built by me, in Next.js, as the kind of thing I build for clients: structured data, a public API, an MCP server and a couple of working tools, not a template. It changes often. Recent changes:

  • Nov 3, 2026 — Rewrote the home page as editorial lists with a first-person intro and a dated Now line. Added motion to the architecture map.
  • Oct 19, 2026 — Added the free architecture review, the decision log with RSS, the AI cost calculator, and a public MCP server.
  • Oct 16, 2026 — Deployed to zainakram.com on Vercel. Added the blog with the first five posts and RSS.
  • Oct 15, 2026 — First version: case studies, services, resume, JSON-LD, llms.txt and the contact form.

Availability

Open to senior roles, architecture consulting and fractional CTO work. I work PKT (UTC+5), working US hours. The fastest way to reach me is devzain17@gmail.com, or the contact form. You can also find me on LinkedIn and GitHub.