Hisham Alhussain

01About

monthly compliance reporting with ESRA at NEOM

4 wks → 1 hrmonthly compliance reporting with ESRA at NEOM

contractors adopted it as the standard procedure

800contractors adopted it as the standard procedure

eval runs passed before every agent release

138/138eval runs passed before every agent release

developer onboarding after automation

6 → 2 wksdeveloper onboarding after automation

02Experience

1. 2026 — Present

   Independent AI Engineer · AI agents for small businesses

   Dammam, Saudi Arabia

   Design, build and run WhatsApp front-desk agents for clinics, salons and law firms in Saudi Arabia.

   • Bilingual agent tuned for Gulf Arabic: FAQs, bookings, reminders, lead follow-ups and human handoff.
   • Eval-gated releases: 46 scripted conversations × 3 runs, 138/138 passing at ~$0.003 per conversation.
   • Exactly-once reminder scheduler on Postgres, proven with concurrent-scheduler smoke tests.
   • Claude API
   • FastAPI
   • PostgreSQL
   • WhatsApp Cloud API

2. Jun 2026 — Sep 2026

   Senior Systems Engineer · EPAM Systems

   Al Khobar, Saudi Arabia

   Led DevOps and deployment for a client's enterprise AI services, ran daily requirements sessions with the client, and developed backend features.

   • Owned deployments to production on GCP and OpenShift with Docker, Terraform and ArgoCD (GitOps), including secrets, TLS and LDAP/SAML authentication.
   • Developed the Speech-to-Text feature for the client's HR agent, debugging it on the client's network through to a working production deployment.
   • Wrote Python connection tests early in the engagement that surfaced client-network issues before they could block deployment.
   • Designed PostgreSQL schemas and data distribution, consolidated migrations, and automated their execution on service startup.
   • DevOps
   • OpenShift
   • ArgoCD
   • Terraform
   • Speech-to-Text
   • PostgreSQL

3. Jan 2024 — Jun 2026

   Senior Solution Architect · NEOM

   Tabuk, Saudi Arabia

   Trusted technical advisor to the Deputy CEO's Office: scoped AI and data solutions and presented designs and decision-intelligence tools to senior leadership.

   • Built ESRA, the app contractors use for monthly environmental submissions: reporting went from ~4 weeks to ~1 hour, adopted by all 800 contractors.
   • Built EnviroGPT, a RAG chatbot that answers NEOM environment teams' questions from indexed environmental documentation.
   • Built LLM and RAG solutions in Palantir Foundry and led design of an environmental data platform unifying multiple waste and compliance systems.
   • Designed GCP networking and storage for enterprise data platforms and set DevOps and CI/CD standards across internal apps.
   • GenAI
   • RAG
   • Palantir Foundry
   • Ontology
   • GCP

4. Jul 2021 — Dec 2023

   DevOps Specialist → Senior DevOps Specialist · NEOM

   Tabuk, Saudi Arabia

   Built the delivery and service platforms NEOM's internal teams ran on, and led a team of 10 consultants.

   • Delivered a centralized helpdesk platform that improved resolution times by 150%.
   • Cut developer onboarding from 6 weeks to 2 and application publishing cycle times by 75%.
   • Automated OCI provisioning, integrated CI/CD across teams, and ran licensing and compliance for 1,000+ users.
   • CI/CD
   • OCI
   • Kubernetes
   • Automation
   • Team lead

5. 2017 — 2019

   Software Developer · IBM

   Austin, TX & Durham, NC, USA

   Built enterprise reporting features and mobile apps, starting as an intern and returning full time.

   • Built React UI components and real-time analytics integrations for enterprise reporting.
   • Automated compliance and security scans in IBM DevOps Insights, improving audit efficiency by 50%.
   • As an intern, shipped IBM Connections mobile features in React Native and improved app performance by 50%.
   • React
   • React Native
   • Analytics
   • DevOps

03Selected work

• Independent · clinics, salons, law firms· 2026

  WhatsApp AI Front-Desk Agent

  A bilingual (Arabic/English) agent that runs a business's WhatsApp number like a front desk: answers, books, reminds, follows up, and hands off to staff.

  eval runs passed

  138/138eval runs passed

  per conversation

  ~$0.003per conversation

  median reply

  2.8smedian reply

  unit & integration tests

  292unit & integration tests

  • Claude API
  • Python
  • FastAPI
  • PostgreSQL
  • Evals

  Read case study →

• NEOM

  ESRA: Environmental & Social Responsibility Application

  The application NEOM's contractors use to submit their monthly environmental sheets, feeding validated data straight into compliance dashboards.

  monthly compliance reporting

  4 wks → 1 hrmonthly compliance reporting

  contractors on the standard procedure

  800contractors on the standard procedure

  less analyst effort

  ~90%less analyst effort

  adopted by other sectors

  Templateadopted by other sectors

  • Online forms
  • Data pipelines
  • Data quality
  • KPI modeling
  • Dashboards

  Read case study → Internal work, shared at a high level

• NEOM· 2024–2026

  EnviroGPT

  A chatbot for NEOM's environment teams that answers questions from the organization's environmental documentation, using retrieval-augmented generation.

  • GenAI
  • RAG
  • Chatbot
  • Palantir Foundry

  Read case study → Internal work, shared at a high level

• NEOM

  Tender360

  Automated tender intelligence: unstructured bid documents become searchable data and executive-ready summaries of key points, risks and comparisons.

  tender processing time

  Weeks → hourstender processing time

  less manual effort

  ~90%less manual effort

  • RAG
  • Embeddings
  • Semantic search
  • LLM summarization
  • Dashboards

  Read case study → Internal work, shared at a high level

More work

• Delivery Platform: CI/CD, IaC & KubernetesNEOM

  Standardized pipelines, infrastructure as code and Kubernetes so teams ship on a predictable cadence with governance built in.

  Outcome: Releases went from every ~6 months to every 2 weeks, onboarding from 6 weeks to 2, publishing cycle times dropped 75%, and helpdesk resolution times improved 150%.

  • CI/CD
  • Infrastructure as Code
  • Kubernetes
  • Observability
  • RBAC

• NEV Environmental DashboardsNEOM

  Interactive dashboards covering projects by status, compliance metrics, complaints and exceedances, regional breakdowns, and diesel generator locations.

  • React
  • Data visualization
  • Maps

• Presentation Parsing PipelineNEOM

  End-to-end pipeline that extracts content from PowerPoint files, with OCR fallback, slide quality checks, and logging, productionized in Foundry.

  • Python
  • pytesseract
  • Tesseract
  • Pillow
  • Palantir Foundry

• CAPEX Estimator for the Line FMPalantir Foundry

  Foundry application for estimating capital expenditure (CAPEX) for the Line FM.

  • Palantir Foundry

• Oil & Gas Pipeline GeomapConfidential energy-sector client

  Geospatial application mapping pipeline routes and stations, with operational dashboards. Client and project details withheld due to confidentiality.

  • Palantir Foundry
  • Maps
  • Dashboards

• Speech-to-Text for an Enterprise HR AgentEPAM Systems (client project)

  Developed the Speech-to-Text feature for a client's HR agent and owned its deployment to production on GCP and OpenShift.

  • Speech-to-Text
  • DevOps
  • OpenShift
  • ArgoCD

Open source

04How I work

1. 01

   Front-load the risk

   Under deadline pressure I go after the unknowns first, so surprises show up while there's still time to fix them.

   At EPAM I wrote connection tests early in the engagement that surfaced client-network issues before they could block deployment.

2. 02

   Quality is a release gate

   Testing isn't a phase at the end. If the checks don't pass, it doesn't ship, however close the deadline is.

   My WhatsApp agent ships only when all 138 eval runs pass in Arabic and English, and its booking rules are enforced in code, not left to the prompt.

3. 03

   Build for adoption, not the demo

   A system is done when people rely on it. I design with the end users from requirements through rollout.

   ESRA became the standard reporting procedure for all 800 NEOM contractors and cut compliance reporting from ~4 weeks to ~1 hour.

4. 04

   Make the next person faster

   Automation, documentation and clear standards compound. I leave teams quicker than I found them.

   At NEOM I cut developer onboarding from 6 weeks to 2 and application publishing cycle times by 75%.

05Writing

• Lessons from shipping AI agents to small businessesSeptember 2026
• You can't fix what you can't see: observability for agentsAugust 2026
• Voice agents are finally good enough. Are they good enough in Arabic?July 2026

06Contact

Two ways to work together. Pick the one that fits.