Ali A. Malik
Product Manager (AI)
Summary
AI Product Manager with 5+ years of experience building data-driven platforms, NLP tooling, AI-powered workflows, and scalable SaaS products. Traced the AI value chain from building big-data and NLP platforms at Trufan/Surf, to shipping design-to-code AI tooling at Tempo, to now building the trust layer for AI agents and models at Sapien. Proven track record leading cross-functional teams, managing complex product roadmaps, and shipping at scale for clients including Amazon, Sequoia, EA, and Riot Games.
Work Experience
Product Manager
Sapien · Full-time
Oct 2025 — Present
Toronto, CA
- Leading product strategy for Sapien's AI data quality platform, defining the roadmap for human-in-the-loop evaluation systems that power leading foundation model companies.
- Driving the development of scalable annotation and RLHF pipelines, shipping tooling that enables thousands of expert evaluators to assess AI model outputs across safety, accuracy, and reasoning.
- Partnering with ML engineering and research teams to translate complex model alignment requirements into actionable product specifications and feedback loops.
- Shaping go-to-market positioning around AI trust and safety, establishing Sapien as a critical infrastructure layer in the responsible AI ecosystem.
AI Product Manager
Tempo (YC '23) · Agent+ · Contract
Dec 2024 — Oct 2025
Toronto, CA
- Managed 20+ concurrent client projects, shipping 1–3 features weekly through AI-driven workflows, agile sprints, and roadmap ownership.
- Launched 6 custom web apps from scratch, leveraging AI code generation and rapid prototyping to compress delivery timelines by 40%.
- Integrated eCommerce tools (Stripe, BigCommerce, Odoo) and headless CMS systems (Sanity) to build scalable, modular platforms via AI-assisted pipelines.
- Led 8 developers and 6 designers across fast-paced product cycles, embedding AI copilots into daily workflows to accelerate design-to-code handoff.
- Built an AI-powered feature tracker to centralize client feedback, increase roadmap visibility, and streamline delivery tracking.
Senior Product Manager
Surf · Acquired by Datacy · Full-time
Jan 2023 — Jul 2024
Toronto, CA
- Led two agile teams across three SaaS products (B2C/B2B/B2M), supporting 700K+ users with NLP-driven analytics and data intelligence features.
- Managed high-profile client portfolio, running data-driven marketing and sweepstakes campaigns for Amazon, EA, Logitech, and Riot Games (average deal ~$1.5M).
- Increased active users by 35% through behavioral analytics and predictive modeling-powered campaigns.
- Owned product roadmaps across 34 sprints, shipping 70+ features with 65–80% sprint predictability.
- Led tech stack migration from Elixir/Rails to Node.js; scoped feature sets, wrote the dev roadmap, and launched new release cycles.
Product Manager
Trufan · Acquired by Surf · Full-time
May 2021 — Dec 2022
Toronto, CA
- Led 6-person team to build and launch two B2C SaaS platforms: Trufan Analytics (NLP-powered Instagram/Twitter/web data processing) and a Giveaways Platform, serving 500K+ users.
- Launched a web dashboard aggregating live data from 120K+ Google Extension users, building SQL-based insights and NLP-driven audience intelligence dashboards.
- Built data marketplace integrations (Snowflake, Liveramp, Eagle Alpha) for downstream NLP analytics, audience segmentation, and activation.
Key Projects
Hisense Canada x NBA2K — Built OCR-based receipt validation system handling 110K+ product validations for a nationwide promotional campaign.
Prime Gaming x League of Legends Worlds '22 — Led technical coordination for 200K+ concurrent user giveaway campaign with zero downtime, including custom queueing system.
Sequoia Capital — Led data-driven startup scouting initiative using real-time social media insights and NLP analysis for early-stage investment signals.
App Orchid Insights — Coordinated NLP dashboard development turning zero-party browsing data into actionable enterprise intelligence.
Core Skills
AI/ML Product Strategy · Agile Methodologies (Scrum, Kanban) · Product & Delivery Management · Cross-Functional Team Leadership · Roadmap & Milestone Planning · NLP & Data Pipeline Architecture · Platform Migration & Replatforming · Client Relationship Management (Enterprise/C-Suite) · Integration Management (ERP, OMS, CMS) · QA Coordination & Defect Triage
Tools
Jira · Figma · OpenAI · Slack · Looker Studio · Sanity CMS · Stripe · BigCommerce · Midjourney · Excel · Trello · Photoshop · Illustrator · WooCommerce
Education
London School of Economics and Political Science
Online Part-time BSc in Business and Management — 2025
Languages
English (Native) · French (Intermediate) · Urdu (Conversational)