Ashish Reddy Jaddu

Software Engineer, AI — shipping production AI systems

Backend · AI/LLM · Full-Stack — RAG, Azure, Vertex AI

Software Engineer, AI at Klue, building AI for competitive intelligence. Previously Founding Engineer at LegiSimple, where I shipped 4 product pivots in 20 months — RAG-powered legal research over 120K+ cases, LLM retrieval pipelines, and full-stack workflow automation on Azure, from Python/Django APIs to React Native apps.

Toronto, Canada
ashish@portfolio:~
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Products shipped

4 in 20 months

From GPT legal research → workflow automation

RAG accuracy

82% → 87%

Hybrid chunking + Azure AI Search + Voyage AI

Workflow time saved

3–4 hr → 20–30 min

HR sanctions process for enterprise clients

01 — About

About

Software Engineer, AI at Klue with 3+ years building production RAG systems, LLM pipelines, and AI-powered workflow automation. I architect hybrid search systems with custom relevance metrics, build agentic orchestration pipelines, and ship full-stack products on Azure + GCP that real users rely on.

My Journey

My journey began in 2020 at HCL Technologies in India, building RESTful APIs and optimizing databases. After earning my Master's in Applied Computer Science from Concordia University (2022-2024), I joined LegiSimple as a founding engineer at the ground floor.

At LegiSimple, I led technical architecture for an AI-native legal-tech startup over 20 months. Shipped 4 product pivots—from GPT-based legal research to a hybrid RAG system over 120K+ case law documents to AI-powered workflow automation—iterating directly with law-firm partners at each stage.

In July 2026, I joined Klue as a Software Engineer, AI — building on the AI platform for competitive intelligence and win-loss analysis, where LLM-powered agents help revenue teams understand why they win and lose deals.

🤖 RAG Systems
⚡ Agentic Pipelines
🔧 Backend Engineering
🚀 Startup Velocity
Impact & Achievements

Production RAG System

AI/LLM Systems

Built hybrid RAG pipeline over 120K+ legal cases: section-aware parsing, agentic chunking for complex legal sections, semantic chunking for simpler sections, and a custom relevance metric (cosine + citation count + recency + shepherdization). Using Azure AI Search with Voyage AI legal embeddings, ground truth eval improved from 82% → 87% retrieval precision with sub-second latency.

Agentic Orchestration

AI Architecture

Designed multi-agent system with an orchestrator coordinating specialized agents: case retrieval, citation validation, and overturned-case detection (shepherdization). Integrated guardrails to validate every citation against the database and enforce safety checks on each tool call.

Workflow Automation Impact

Product Engineering

End-to-end HR sanctions platform: Azure Durable Functions orchestrator gathers employee history + handbook + labor regulations, AI recommends action level, human-in-the-loop HR approval, auto-generates compliant letters. 3–4 hours → 20–30 minutes.

Backend Performance & Security

Backend Excellence

Python/Django APIs optimized with Redis caching + query tuning (30% faster). Azure OpenAI + AI Search in private VNet. Cloudflare WAF protection for sensitive law-firm data. 99.9% uptime.

Architecture & Infrastructure

Cloud Architecture

Design and deploy Azure/GCP infrastructure with VNets, App Services, and serverless functions

AI System Design

Build RAG pipelines, vector databases (Azure AI Search, Pinecone), and LLM orchestration with LangChain

API & Backend

Python/Django & FastAPI REST APIs with caching, rate-limiting, and database optimization for production scale

Security & Data Privacy

Implement VNet isolation, encryption, and compliance controls for sensitive legal data

Generative AI & LLMs

OpenAI & Azure OpenAI

Production LLM integration, prompt engineering, AI agents

RAG Systems

Vector embeddings, semantic search, retrieval pipelines

Vertex AI

LLM evaluation experiments on a 1K-label ground-truth dataset for retrieval precision measurement and improvement

Vector Databases

Azure AI Search, Pinecone, embeddings storage

LangChain & LangGraph

AI workflow orchestration, multi-step agents

Backend & APIs

Python/Django & FastAPI

REST APIs, async services, ORM, 30% performance optimization

Azure Functions

Durable Functions, serverless workflows

Node.js/Express

RESTful services, real-time SignalR integration

API Optimization

Caching, query tuning, rate-limiting

Cloud & Infrastructure

Azure

App Services, VNet, Azure SQL, AI Search, private endpoints

Google Cloud

Compute Engine, Cloud Run, Vertex AI

Docker & Kubernetes

Containerization, orchestration, production deployments

Redis & Caching

Query caching, session management, performance

Frontend & Mobile

Next.js/React

SSR, Zustand state management, component architecture

TypeScript

Type-safe applications, advanced patterns

React Native

iOS & Android apps published on App Store & Play Store

Real-time UI

Azure SignalR, live dashboard updates

02 — Experience

Experience

Klue logo
Software Engineer, AI
KlueToronto, Canada (Hybrid)
July 2026 – Present
Full-time

Building AI capabilities for Klue's competitive intelligence and win-loss platform — the system revenue teams use to know why they're winning, why they're losing, and what to do about it

Contributing to LLM-powered agent products and insight pipelines that automatically collect, curate, and deliver competitive intel to sellers in real time

Python
LLMs
RAG
AI Agents
LegiSimple / Trails Legal logo
Founding Engineer
LegiSimple / Trails LegalMontreal, Canada
July 2024 – Feb 2026
Full-time

Shipped 4 products over 20 months (GPT legal research → Canadian case law → US case law → workflow automation), owning architecture and delivery end-to-end across each stage

Built hybrid RAG pipeline over 120K+ legal cases: section-aware parsing, agentic chunking for complex legal sections (citations, statutes, precedence), semantic chunking for simpler sections, and a custom relevance metric (cosine similarity + citation count + recency + quote level + shepherdization). Using Azure AI Search with Voyage AI legal embeddings, retrieval precision improved from 82% → 87% while keeping query costs sustainable

Designed agentic orchestration system: orchestrator coordinating specialized agents for case retrieval, citation validation, and overturned-case detection. Integrated guardrails to validate every citation against the database and enforce safety checks on each step

Built HR sanctions workflow automation: Azure Durable Functions orchestrator gathers employee history, company handbook, and labor regulations; AI recommends action level; human-in-the-loop HR approval; auto-generates legally compliant letters. Reduced a 3–4 hour manual process to 20–30 minutes

Architected Azure backend: App Services, Durable Functions, Azure SQL, Azure OpenAI + AI Search in private VNet with Cloudflare WAF — 99.9% uptime

Optimized Python/Django APIs with Redis caching and SQL query tuning (30% faster responses, 25% memory reduction); built Next.js/React frontends with SignalR real-time updates and Mixpanel/PostHog analytics

Python
Django
FastAPI
LangChain
Azure OpenAI
Azure Durable Functions
Azure AI Search
Next.js
React
React Native
Vertex AI
Redis
Azure SQL
Keywords Studios logo
Functional QA Engineer
Keywords StudiosMontreal, Canada
Jun 2023 – Jul 2024
Full-time

Performed API testing and backend validation across multiple software products, verifying RESTful endpoint behavior, data integrity, and error handling

Conducted AI/ML feature testing for AI-powered products, validating LLM-generated content quality, edge case handling, and response consistency

Executed regression, smoke, integration, and exploratory testing across web applications, mobile apps, and gaming platforms — documented 200+ bugs with detailed reproduction steps

Collaborated with development teams using Jira and Bugzilla to prioritize defects and ensure timely resolution before production releases

API Testing
Jira
Bugzilla
Regression Testing
AI/ML Testing
QA
HCL Technologies logo
Software Engineer
HCL TechnologiesHyderabad, India
Oct 2020 – Jan 2022
Full-time

Developed and deployed RESTful APIs powering internal React applications; optimized MySQL queries improving page-load performance by ~20% and reducing DB response times by ~10%

Debugged production issues across frontend and backend services; built database-backed defect catalog boosting QA effectiveness by ~40%

Managed deployments for 5 web applications on Heroku, improving configuration and resource usage to cut hosting costs by ~15%

Node.js
Python
React
RESTful APIs
MySQL
Heroku
CI/CD

03 — Education

Education

Master of Science — Applied Computer Science
Concordia University • Montreal, Canada
Sept 2022 – Apr 2024
Advanced Programming Practices
Applied Artificial Intelligence
Distributed System Design
Data Communication & Networking
Algorithm Design & Analysis
Bachelor of Technology — Computer Science
Geetanjali College of Engineering and Technology • Hyderabad, India
June 2016 – Sept 2020

04 — Selected Work

Selected Work

Production systems I've designed and shipped — the problem, the approach, and what it changed.

AI / Backend
Hybrid RAG Legal Research System

Challenge

Law firm partners needed accurate semantic search across 120,000+ NY case law documents. Keyword search missed relevant precedents, and manual research took hours per query.

Solution

Architected a hybrid RAG pipeline: section-aware document parsing, agentic chunking for complex legal sections (preserving citations, statutes, precedence signals), and semantic chunking for simpler sections. Built a custom relevance metric combining cosine similarity with citation count, recency, quote level, and shepherdization (whether a case is still good law). Added an agentic orchestration layer with specialized agents for case retrieval, citation validation, and overturned-case detection. Guardrails cross-check every citation against the case database and enforce safety checks on each tool call.

Result

85–90% retrieval relevance in production with sub-second latency. Ground truth evaluation improved from 82% to 87% through hybrid chunking refinements, Azure AI Search tuning, and Voyage AI legal embeddings. Actively used in production for legal research.

Python
LangChain
OpenAI
Azure AI Search
Voyage AI
Vertex AI
Django
PostgreSQL
Private codebase — happy to walk through architecture in detail
Workflow Automation / Full-Stack
HR Sanctions Workflow Automation

Challenge

An enterprise client's HR team handled employee disciplinary cases entirely manually: supervisors wrote warning letters inconsistently, with no compliance checks and no audit trail—creating compliance risk and 3–4 hour processing times.

Solution

Built an end-to-end workflow platform: supervisors log incidents via a React Native mobile app, triggering an Azure Durable Functions orchestrator. The orchestrator gathers employee incident history, company handbook, and government labor regulations, then uses Azure OpenAI to recommend an action level (verbal warning, written warning, suspension, or termination). HR reviews and approves or overrides. System auto-generates a legally compliant letter and logs every action for audit trails.

Result

Reduced 3–4 hour manual process to 20–30 minutes. Eliminated inconsistent letters through AI-assisted generation. Full audit trail created for every case. Human-in-the-loop design kept HR in control of every final decision.

Azure Durable Functions
Azure OpenAI
Python
Django
FastAPI
React Native
Next.js
Azure SignalR
Azure SQL
Private codebase — happy to walk through architecture in detail
AI Agents / Personal
Deep Research & Voice Agents

Challenge

I wanted to understand production-grade agents beyond frameworks: how to design research and voice agents with full control over planning, tools, observability, and failure modes.

Solution

Built a Deep Research Agent in raw Python (no LangChain/LangGraph) that plans web research, iterates search→reflect loops, ranks sources with embeddings, and synthesizes long-form cited reports using Azure OpenAI and Tavily. In parallel, built a restaurant voice agent on LiveKit that answers real phone calls, uses Deepgram STT/TTS and Azure OpenAI tools for menus and reservations, and logs all calls and bookings to Supabase.

Result

Demonstrated end-to-end agentic systems with structured logging, retry/backoff, cost controls, evals on a labeled dataset, and real-time voice interactions. These projects are my playground for experimenting with new LLM models and agent patterns outside of production client work.

Python
Azure OpenAI
Tavily
Streamlit
LiveKit
Deepgram
Supabase
FastAPI
Private codebase — happy to walk through architecture in detail
Mobile / React Native
Mobile Apps (iOS & Android)

Challenge

Field workers needed to capture incident reports and receive case documents on-site. Web-only access created delays and prevented real-time updates in the field.

Solution

Built cross-platform React Native apps (published on iOS App Store and Google Play Store) integrated with the workflow automation backend. Push notifications for status updates, real-time sync via Azure SignalR, and seamless handoff to the Next.js dashboard for HR reviewers.

Result

Enabled on-site incident capture and real-time document delivery for field workers. Provided the multi-channel access layer that made the HR sanctions workflow end-to-end.

React Native
TypeScript
Azure SignalR
Push Notifications
Django REST API
Private codebase — happy to walk through architecture in detail

05 — Contact

Get in Touch

Always happy to talk AI systems, RAG, backend engineering — or just to connect. Reach out directly and I'll get back to you.

Email

ashishjaddu@gmail.com

LinkedIn

Connect with me