Bio / Independent consultant
About Arslan Zaheer
Arslan Zaheer is a UK-based independent AI, cloud and security consultant and Head of Engineering (AI & Cloud) at Magnus Infotech, with 11+ years and 150+ projects.
I build production AI systems, red-team them the way frontier labs do, and make sure the platform underneath is secure, compliant and cost-efficient. Clients work with me directly — no account managers, no hand-offs to juniors.
- Years in engineering
- 11+
- Projects delivered
- 150+
- Countries
- 22+
- Products shipped
- 43
Head of Engineering (AI & Cloud) at Magnus Infotech
Oct 2025 — Present
- Leads engineering strategy, architecture and product delivery across backend, web, cloud and platform infrastructure.
- Defined engineering standards, development processes and architectural best practices.
- Drives platform performance, observability, reliability and release engineering.
Independent consulting: 150+ projects, 22+ countries, 43 products
Alongside permanent leadership roles I run an independent practice for scale-ups, enterprises and investors. Engagements range from fixed-scope audits and technical due diligence to building AI platforms, web products and mobile apps end to end.
- AI red teaming & LLM penetration testing
- Technical due diligence for investors
- SOC 2 & ISO 27001 readiness
- AI agent & RAG development
- Fractional CTO & Head of Engineering
- AWS architecture & cloud cost optimisation
- All eight services
See the products: all case studies.
Career
Oct 2024 — Oct 2025
Head of Software Engineering
Software Stories Ltd
Owned technology vision, product strategy and architecture across AI, enterprise software, cloud and cybersecurity.
Jan 2023 — Oct 2024
Senior Backend, AI & Cybersecurity Engineer
Bodytrak
Led backend architecture for a real-time industrial worker-safety platform.
Nov 2020 — Dec 2021
Founding Principal Engineer — AI & Full Stack
Point Laz Mining
Built end-to-end industrial AI systems connecting LiDAR field devices to cloud dashboards.
Jul 2019 — Oct 2020
Senior Full-Stack AI Python Developer, Team Lead
CodeFulcrum
Led a multi-person team shipping web, desktop and mobile applications across business domains.
Apr 2018 — Oct 2020
Senior Software Development Engineer
Crowdbotics
Built APIs for authentication, payments, synchronisation and third-party integrations.
Jan 2015 — Jul 2019
Senior AI Consultant & Solutions Architect — Top Rated Plus (Top 3%)
Upwork
Delivered SaaS platforms, AI agents, RAG systems and LLM integrations for startups and enterprises.
AI evaluation and red-teaming work
Evaluation, red-teaming and training work on frontier models and autonomous coding agents, carried out on these platforms (names shown for context; work under NDA):
Mercor · Turing · Uber AI Solutions · DataAnnotation · Mindrift · AfterQuery · Terac
Adversarial QC on frontier models
Ran adversarial quality control, trajectory review and multi-turn reasoning audits on frontier LLMs and autonomous coding agents.
Catching reward hacking
Audited synthetic repositories, test suites and Docker runtimes to catch reward hacking, answer leakage and false-positive verifications.
Evaluation & benchmark design
Designed LLM workflows, benchmarking frameworks and automated evaluation pipelines to measure correctness and reasoning quality.
Training data & RLHF
Structured response assessment and expert feedback used to train and refine next-generation AI systems for safety and reliability.
Certifications
AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional
Amazon Web Services · Apr 2026 — Apr 2029
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Databricks Certified Generative AI Engineer
Databricks
Fine-Tuning Large Language Models
Databricks Academy · Apr 2026
Advanced Machine Learning Operations
Databricks Academy · Apr 2026
- G
Project Management Certificate
Google
Education
MSc Cyber Security and Forensic Information Technology
University of Portsmouth, UK · 2022 — 2023
BSc Computer Software Engineering
University of the Punjab
Awards
Cybersecurity Engineer of the Year 2026
Corporate LiveWire Innovation & Excellence Awards
Global Recognition Award 2024
Global Recognition Awards
Vetted by
Toptal
Verified Expert in Engineering
Upwork
Top Rated Plus — Top 3%
Recommendations
He’s played a key role in driving our efforts toward SOC 2 and ISO 27001 compliance, and improving our software security capabilities.
He has been instrumental in leading key security initiatives that have significantly strengthened our company’s overall security posture.
He was able to deliver many parts of our system, communicate efficiently, and was fun to work with throughout the engagement.
Steady progress, predictable delivery, and code that’s easy to review and integrate.
His knowledge of security, cryptography, and database design was of crucial importance to our product’s successful development.
Particularly impressed by Arslan’s initiative in implementing robust security measures for SOC 2 and ISO 27001 standards.
What truly sets Arslan apart is the ability to communicate complex technical concepts in a clear and accessible manner.
Solid technical knowledge in automations using n8n and Meta Cloud API — he solved complex integrations efficiently.
A strong blend of expertise in cybersecurity, digital forensics tools, and software development — reliable and consistently high standard.
Let’s talk about what you’re building.
Book a free 1-hour intro call, or send a short brief and I’ll reply with a proposed scope within two working days.