I connect technology, product and business.
Product and technology lead for AI and FinTech products. I took Hooshemasnoei, a Persian AI platform, from idea to 135,000+ users and built its team from zero.
About
Hi, I'm Ilya Tamimi.
Most of my career has happened somewhere between technology, product and business, where I need to understand both how something gets built and why it should be built at all.
I started on the technical side: networking, server infrastructure, Linux, monitoring and operations. Over time I moved into building products, planning, building teams and making business decisions. Today I lead product and engineering for a group of AI and FinTech products, and I'm a co-founder of two studios, Ravand and RoseGalaxy. Most of my time goes into that connecting point.
Along the way I've worked on products across AI, FinTech, infrastructure, marketing and digital commerce. What stays most interesting to me is the process of building itself: finding the problem, deciding, shipping a first version, seeing what was wrong, and building it better.
As my management responsibilities grew, I tried not to drift away from the technical side. I'm always learning: I keep deepening my programming knowledge and try new tools myself, especially AI-assisted development, because the better I understand how a product is built, the better my decisions about building it, and the better I speak my engineering team's language.
Outside work: rock and metal, cinema, and tinkering with Linux are still a big part of my life.
This isn't meant to be just an online CV. It's a place to record what I learn about building products, technology, teams and business: what worked, what didn't, and what I still don't know.
Experience
- Built the product and engineering team from zero and lead it, 5–10 people: hiring, roadmap, prioritisation, task breakdown and delivery.
- Hooshemasnoei, a Persian all-in-one AI platform: took it from idea to 135,000+ registered users; 20,000+ have bought a plan on the freemium model (≈15%).
- TheFinance, an all-in-one finance product (platform, market data, magazine and community messaging): lead engineering from planning to delivery, side by side with product.
- Shape product direction, growth and investment plans with the group's leadership.
- Co-founded Ravand with Mehdi Hosseini: two founders on one shared trunk, with product and user experience on my side and engineering and infrastructure on Mehdi's.
- Ravand means “the path of growth” in Persian. The studio is still being built, and like its name, it grows ring by ring.
- Co-founded RoseGalaxy with Koosha Tamimi to connect academics and researchers to the digital world and introduce their work to it.
- I lead technical architecture, engineering, and the AI-enabled tools we build.
- Grew online sales 3× in three months with integrated (360°) campaigns.
- Launched the online store with the tech team and owned its digital channel.
- Closed the buy-now-pay-later partnership with Snapp Pay, one of Iran's leading BNPL providers, and ran its campaigns.
- Closed B2B sales contracts for the private-label brand T by Takavarco.
- Supervised deployments of finance, CRM and ERP systems for business clients, from setup to handover.
- Provided post-launch support and resolved user issues.
- Formed and led a cross-functional team to redesign the website and digital platform.
- Advised on digital transformation and AI-driven process improvements.
- Developed the site infrastructure with the tech team and shaped commercial partnerships.
- Delivered 50+ web and marketing projects for clients.
- In year two we switched from project fees to commission: no upfront fee, a share of the client's sales growth. Commission reached 1 billion tomans within six months (about US$38,000 at 2021–22 average rates).
- Pinash eventually closed. It was named after a mountain in Taleqan, where I'm originally from.
- Monitored performance, uptime and security of Linux server infrastructure.
- Supported the team on network operations and security fixes.
Skills
Projects
- Retail & wholesale platform for digital and mobile accessories.
- With my business advice, sales grew sharply over Black Friday 2024 and it became one of the top three sellers in its category on Snapp Pay.
- Managed the project and built the team.
- Took partnerships from negotiation to contract.
- Advised on digital marketing.
- Helped design the website.
- Set up buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) partnerships.
- Ran the brand's digital marketing.
- Built a retail & wholesale auto-parts marketplace with Next.js and React.
- Led project management.
- Retail & wholesale platform for digital and mobile accessories, fashion and clothing, kitchenware and entertainment.
- Hired and shaped the team, from interviews to getting the work running.
- Managed the website project.
- Managed the design and build of off-road vehicle equipment.
- Built the site with a friend on headless WordPress.
- Pitched the business idea to the brand owner.
- Put the product team together.
- Designed and launched the company website end to end.
- Designed and launched the studio's website end to end.
- An idea I'm testing on my own: do Iranian online stores need help staying reachable when international internet is cut?
- I built a prototype that checks a store's home page for dependencies on foreign services (CDNs, fonts, captchas, hosting, DNS), and ran it on 160+ stores.
A project, a question, or just hello?
Get in touch about product and technology advisory, a role, or working together on a project. I usually reply within a few days.