Rostam Mahabadi
The Applied AI Engineer Who Gives Away His Best Ideas
Rostam Mahabadi has a strategy that sounds like career suicide: before a client signs anything, he gives them the whole architecture.
He shows up to that first call having already researched their company. He's prepared three or four ways they could use AI. He draws mermaid diagrams of how everything will communicate. He breaks down each component in plain English until they understand exactly what they'd be getting.
"If they want to take that and hire someone else, that's totally fine," he says. "At least they have a way forward."
In a year of consulting, it's happened once. His close rate hovers around 90-95%. Turns out, radical transparency builds more trust than any sales pitch.
How He Got Here
Rostam spent four years as a software engineer before discovering applied AI. The shift happened in January 2025, when he enrolled in Gauntlet, an intensive AI program known for 100-hour weeks and a relentless focus on shipping.
"It unlocked my understanding of what's possible," he says. "I was writing traditional code for years. Then I saw the 10X speed-up you could get. That was it."
After graduating, he took a role at a company and solved their biggest problem. He built an AI system that saved them $175,000 a year. But he kept taking clients on the side. The pull of new problems was too strong.
His first real consulting project came through Gauntlet's network. The CEO passed him a gig with a satellite imagery company. He built a conversational AI agent that could analyze and describe what the satellites were seeing. It taught him the fundamentals of chatbots, RAG systems, context management, memory.
His second client came from Reddit.
He posted on r/SaaS about his skillset. Someone reached out, scheduled a meeting, and became a long-term client. After that, word of mouth took over. Referrals from Gauntlet. Friends passing along projects they couldn't take. Meetups in Austin where he'd meet founders who needed exactly what he could build.
"Once you establish yourself as the AI guy in your network, it compounds," he says. "People mention you when AI comes up in conversation. They're like, 'I know this guy.'"
How He Sells
What separates Rostam from other contractors isn't his technical skills. It's how he talks.
"If you can explain it to a five-year-old, that makes you an expert," he says. "Your job as a contractor is to translate the technical to the non-technical. If they don't get it one way, explain it another way. Keep going until they actually get it."
He doesn't use jargon. He doesn't assume clients know what RAG means or how agents work. He speaks in their language, about their problems.
"You can't act like a know-it-all," he says. "I know what I know, but I want to be surrounded by people better than me. I don't always have to be right."
This shows up in how he runs projects. During that first scoping call, he writes down every architectural decision. He talks through their existing infrastructure. He asks what languages they prefer, what cloud provider, what constraints. Then he breaks the project into weekly milestones and ties his pricing to business outcomes.
"If you're building an agent that reduces support tickets, how much is that saving in billable hours? How many new clients could they get? You quantify the value," he says. "It's not an expense. It's an investment that pays off."
His Stack
Rostam's preferred stack for building AI agents and applications:
Primary: TypeScript, Vercel AI SDK, mem0, pgvector, PostgreSQL, Vercel
Also works with: Python, LangGraph, Mastra, Qdrant, Pinecone, Exa Search
The stack reflects where the industry is headed: TypeScript-first AI development with vector storage for context, deployed on modern infrastructure. But he adapts to what the client already has. The first question is always "what are you running now?" not "let me bring my favorite tools."
How He Stays Current
The field moves fast. Rostam has a system for keeping up.
Every morning, he checks GitHub's trending repositories to see what people are building. He scans arXiv for new papers. He leans on his community. Friends in the space send him articles, share what they've implemented, flag what's working.
He uses multiple LLMs and plays them against each other.
"ChatGPT, Grok, Gemini. They pull from different sources," he says. "You go down one avenue with one, then switch to another. You see the commonalities and differences. That's where the creative insights come from."
But the real learning happens on client work. Every project forces him to research the best approach, implement new techniques, see what holds up in production. Each one adds tools to his toolbox.
Why Austin
Rostam is bullish on Austin.
"It's like San Francisco before San Francisco blew up," he says. "There's a ton of talent, a lot of companies opening up, a lot of meetups. But unlike SF, not everyone here is in tech. You go out to dinner and meet people in other industries. That matters. You don't just want to be around AI people. You want to apply AI to other industries."
He recommends three communities: AITX for the large, broad AI crowd. Deep Learning AI for the paper-focused, research-oriented crowd. And Fiesta for business owners, which is where you find clients.
Why This Work
When asked why applied AI is the right work for him, he doesn't hesitate.
"I'm a problem solver at heart. I love getting difficult problems that haven't been solved before and trying to connect the pieces."
What he loves about consulting: clients feel like they're getting a deal. Work that might cost half a million from a big firm, he delivers at a fraction. He's constantly learning. And it never gets boring. The field changes so fast that the same problem looks different in six months.
"If you're a continual learner with a growth mindset, this is the right place," he says. "You will never get bored doing the same thing over and over. It's going to be different next time."
He pauses.
"It's a passion. I want everyone to get into it. If you like solving problems and want to keep growing, you should be here. Community is everything. People helped me along the way. It's only right I help people along the way."
Rostam Mahabadi is an applied AI engineer and consultant based in Austin, TX. He spoke at the inaugural Applied AI Live in January 2026. His path from software engineer to AI consultant in under a year is one of the clearest examples of what's possible in the applied AI economy.