AZHAR ALHASAN
Staff Machine Learning Engineer · Malmö, Sweden · Arabic | English | Swedish
I ship production GenAI, RAG, and AI systems that handle millions of interactions, improve resolution rates, and lower costs. Recent wins: IKEA's 63-country bot (+35% resolution, -20% support cost), tenant-contained LLM chat with privacy/governance deployed in under 24h for sub-$1k/mo, and prompt-based AI playlists driving +25% engagement and -40% curation effort.
Signature outcomes: IKEA Billie at 20M+ monthly conversations with +35% resolution and -20% support cost across 63+ markets. Axis Object Analytics shipped portfolio-wide on-device detection/tracking at no extra cost. Spotify's AI Playlist delivered +25% engagement with -40% curation effort.
What I do: production GenAI across chat and voice with eval loops, latency and cost controls, and observability; tenant-first LLM and RAG with privacy and governance guardrails; AI features that ship from playlists to support automation and on-device intelligence.
How I work: discover the right outcomes with privacy and infra alignment, prove with eval harnesses targeting quality, latency, and cost, then ship and learn through autoscaling, guardrails, and steady iteration.
Experience
IKEA
Staff Machine Learning Engineer · Retail · Dec 2025–Present
Team size 12 · Reporting to Retail Data & Machine Learning Manager
- Led Billie, a 24/7 AI voice/chat/email assistant handling 20M+ monthly conversations.
- Scaled coverage to 63+ markets with measurable resolution and cost impact.
Senior Machine Learning Engineer · Retail · Oct 2024–Dec 2025
- Built eval pipelines that lifted resolution rates 35% and cut support costs 20%.
- Ensured zero downtime with caching, autoscaling, and end-to-end observability.
Capgemini
Senior Machine Learning Engineer · Consulting
- Built Hitachi Energy Enterprise Chat: tenant-contained LLM chat on Azure with privacy/governance.
- Shipped guardrails, eval harnesses, and extension hooks for tailored prompts and personas.
- Delivered Spotify AI Playlist on Premium mobile; +25% engagement, -40% curation effort.
Axis Communications
Machine Learning Engineer · Video Surveillance
- Shipped AXIS Object Analytics across the camera portfolio at no extra cost.
- Optimized CNNs for ARTPEC SoCs; scaled real-time models to 76% of cameras.
Core Skills
GenAI & RAG
Agentic RAG, prompt engineering, LangChain, LangSmith, semantic search, and Elasticsearch (vector search).
Serving & LLM stack
Vertex AI model providers, LiteLLM routing, Kubernetes microservices, Docker, and Pub/Sub messaging.
MLOps & Infra
GitHub Actions CI/CD, IaC with Terraform, Redis caching, and production eval/guardrail workflows.
Data & services
Postgres for production data, BigQuery Lakehouse, and ClickHouse analytics.
Backend
Python, SQL, and TypeScript with API design, evaluation harnesses, and production guardrails.
Monitoring & observability
Grafana dashboards, Langfuse traces, OpenTelemetry instrumentation, and operational model monitoring.
Products
IKEA Billie — Support Automation
24/7 customer chat and voice bot across 63+ markets, handling order status, store hours, delivery rescheduling, and issue reporting.
Highlights
- Feedback-driven evaluation pipelines over 20M+ monthly conversations; +35% resolution and -20% support cost.
- Latency-aware routing, autoscaling, and caching to stabilize peak loads; observability via Langfuse + OpenTelemetry into Grafana.
Stack
Enterprise Chat — Hitachi Energy
Hitachi Solutions Enterprise Chat: LLM chat in your Azure tenant with privacy, governance, and user management—deployable in under a day for sub-$1k/mo.
Highlights
- Secure SaaS in your Azure tenant with ISO-aligned controls and data privacy.
- Fast start: up and running in <24 hours; low entry cost (<$1k/mo) with enterprise options.
Stack
AI Playlist — Spotify
For Premium on mobile: AI Playlist builds a playlist from your typed prompt, curating songs to match your taste.
Highlights
- Use prompts that mix places, activities, moods, genres, artists, decades, or emojis—combinations perform best.
- Go to Your Library > Plus > AI Playlist; choose a suggested prompt or type your own, then Add/Save tracks you like.
Stack
AXIS Object Analytics
On-device AI across the Axis camera portfolio; detection, tracking, and classification shipped at no extra cost.
Highlights
- Optimized CNNs for ARTPEC SoCs (quantization, memory, throughput).
- Enabled concurrent real-time models on constrained hardware.
Stack
Independent Builds
Visa Free Nomads
Visa Free Nomads shows where your existing visas and residence permits already unlock entry — no hacks, just written law.
Highlights
- Built for low-mobility passport holders to surface compound access that most tools miss.
- Authoritative, source-verified country rules with direct links to official guidance.
Stack
Manassa (iOS/Android/Web)
Manassa is a cross-platform (iOS/Android/Web) app for customer engagement, follow-ups, and team collaboration on the go.
Highlights
- Capture every opportunity: respond to leads instantly to build trust.
- Follow up on the fly with real-time alerts for new messages and team actions.
Stack
Education
MSc, Embedded and Intelligent Systems
Halmstad University · 2017–2019
BSc, Electrical and Electronics Engineering
University of Basrah · 2012–2016
Let's Talk
Reach out to explore future collaborations—whether you need GenAI, RAG, or ML leadership, or want a quick gut-check on where to take your stack next.