// chronically curious, tinkerer at heart

RAHUL

HIVLEKAR

Technology Leader · AI Practitioner · Builder

I build things that solve real problems. Sometimes that's a big enterprise AI programme. Sometimes it's writing the actual code at midnight. Usually both, in the same week.

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about

Technology Leader.
AI Practitioner.

Somewhere around two decades in, I realised that the most useful thing I could be is the person who understands both sides of the technology conversation — the boardroom side and the engineering side. Not just one or the other.

I've been building with AI long enough to know that most of what gets called "AI strategy" is just slides. I'd rather build the actual thing — the system that runs quietly in the background, that people depend on without thinking about it. I've done that. In production.

SwatiLabs is mine. I started it because I had a hunch that one person who really understands technology can build something better than a committee that only talks about it. Still testing that theory. Results so far are encouraging.

~2 Decades in Technology
$20M+ Programmes Delivered
9+ AI Products Built
6 Industry Verticals

what drives me

What I Love Doing

Finding the Real Problem
🔍
Finding the Real Problem
Most of the time, the problem someone brings me isn't the actual problem. Something else is going on underneath. I like sitting with that — resisting the urge to jump to a solution — until the real thing surfaces. That patience is probably my most useful quality.
👁️
Spotting What's Missing
I notice gaps. In processes, in thinking, in how technology is being used. With AI right now, the space between what's possible and what most organisations are actually doing with it is almost funny. That's not a criticism — it's an opportunity. One I find genuinely exciting.
🌉
Being the Translator
I can sit with the board in the morning and the engineers in the afternoon and make sense in both rooms. That sounds simple. It really isn't. When it works, it saves months of everyone talking past each other.
⚖️
Finding the One Thing
Every stuck system has one constraint that, if you remove it, gets everything moving. The tricky part is that it's almost never the obvious one. Finding it — and not getting distracted by the ten more visible problems — is the work I find most satisfying.
Building the Solution
🤖
Making AI Earn Its Keep
Demos are easy. Getting AI to do something reliably useful, in production, that people actually depend on — that's the hard part. I've built that. Not because it's fashionable, but because the problems it solves are real ones worth solving.
LLMsRAG Claude APIpgvector
⚡
Starting with a Blank File
There's a specific feeling when you start with nothing and end up with something people actually use. Configuration is fine. Customisation is fine. But creation is something else entirely. SwatiLabs is where I get to do that.
Next.jsFastAPI PostgreSQLDocker
🧩
Untangling Things
Big technology programmes are messy. People, process, and systems all knotted together in ways nobody planned. I actually enjoy that — the mapping, the logic-finding, the moment when the shape of it finally becomes clear.
D365Salesforce SAPAgile
📡
Staying Curious
I read a lot. New models, new ideas, new ways of thinking about old problems. Not to collect information — because I genuinely want to understand. The question I keep coming back to: what real problem could this actually solve?

experience

Where I've Worked

🏗️
SwatiLabs NOW
Building AI-native SaaS from the ground up — full-stack engineering, LLM product integration, and an entire company's worth of product decisions made alone.
🎯
BDO India LLP
Technology leadership for BDO India's digital transformation agenda. Senior stakeholder engagement, translating business needs into technology decisions.
🌐
Earlier Career
Close to two decades of technology leadership across Sonata Software, A5E Consulting, Trafigura, and others — spanning consulting, global logistics, specialty finance, and energy. Large programmes, complex stakeholders, real outcomes.

beyond work

The Person Behind the Code

📚
Reading
Books over scrolling, always. Philosophy, technology, fiction — whatever pulls me in. Most of my thinking happens while reading, not while staring at a screen trying to think.
⚗️
The Tech Rabbit Hole
I follow AI and technology the way some people follow cricket. New models, new papers, new ideas — I want to understand them properly, not just read about them second-hand. It's a hobby that happens to be useful.
🥾
Getting Outside
A good trail sorts out whatever was tangled up in my head. Something about the rhythm and the quiet. Some of my better ideas have arrived at altitude with no signal.
🌿
Quiet Time
I need time to think without interruption. Not every day, but regularly. Most of what I'm proud of started somewhere in that silence.
👨‍👩‍👧‍👧
Family
My wife Swati and our daughters. They're the reason the work has to mean something — you can't go home to people you love and tell them you spent your day building things that don't matter.

writing

Thinking Out Loud

I've been meaning to write properly for a while. Not LinkedIn posts. Not threads. Actual thinking — about AI, about building software, about what technology leadership looks like when you understand the engineering. The ideas that don't fit in 280 characters.

That's in the works. If you want to know when it lands, drop me a line.

// COMING SOON

credentials

How I Work

Agile is just how I think. Try something, see what happens, adjust. I happen to have a Scrum Master certification, but that's a byproduct — I'd have worked this way regardless. I'm an enthusiast first, practitioner second.

I'm also a Prince2 Practitioner, for when someone has to be the adult in the room about governance and risk. Some programmes genuinely need that. Knowing which mode a situation calls for is the real skill.

contact

Get in Touch

An interesting problem, a project you're thinking through, or just a conversation — I'm easy to reach.

✉
Email
rahul.hivlekar@gmail.com
 📱
Phone
+91 98195 29645
 💼
LinkedIn
in/rahulhivlekar
 🏢
Company
swatilabs.in