Founding / Staff Product Designer · AI productsMy unit of ownership is the product, not the screen

Users forgive a model for being wrong; never for bluffing.

AI Failure States — one of eight patterns, all in production (in the pattern library) →

I owned the product definition and the roadmap across six systems, then shipped the front-end — 2 wks → 3 hrs on campaign planning.

Talon Outdoor · 2019–2025 · the miss and the fix — in the AdTech case →

Connect on LinkedIn (opens in a new tab) full-time, contract or fractional · remote from India

The process, on film — 3:33

The method, written out →
Talon Outdoorsix connected systems · 2 wks → 3 hrs · per campaign
PE & VC · AI-native platformsdeal screening · 60% faster · pre/post rollout
PTCNASA, Boeing & Apple engineers · $1M / yr saved
Telefónica O2two products · 4M+ subscribers
The person — who you’d be hiring

Numbers survive scrutiny; a person ships them. Who you’d actually be getting, and how I run a room.

By Friday of week one I’ve read your evals and sat in on your customer calls; by launch, the interface I drew is the code I shipped.

I read the model at the eval layer — the tests that score its answers. I shape what gets measured. I ship the front-end.

Designing for someone who isn’t you starts by becoming them. That project started as my documented miss →

Arpit Maheshwari

Candidate Facts

Serving size: 30 minutes · Servings: 1 seat

Experience
16 yrs
Industries
5
Patterns in production
8
Act / Review / Ignore
1 rule
Users shipped
4M+ · public

The path — sixteen years, four seats

  1. 2010–12Tata Consultancy Services · Systems Analyst, Mobility
  2. 2012–14Equal Experts, for Telefónica O2 UK · Designer + front-end developer
  3. 2014–19PTC · Product & Design Lead, PTC University
  4. 2019–nowSahaj · Product & Design Lead, AI products · Talon Outdoor 2019–25
The promise a product makes — before launch

I write down what the AI cannot do.

Ask a language model anything and it answers, fluently, whether or not it knows. A user’s trust does not erode slowly; it dies in a single confident wrong answer. So the limits get agreed on one page the whole team signs, then printed in the product itself, where the person is working. There is one on this page, working.

What it is for

One job, stated narrowly. “Score the risk in this data room,” not “analyse documents.”

What it refuses

A named limit, never a hedge. “I don’t read handwriting,” not “results may vary.”

How it hands over

A visible route to a person, built with the care of the main path. Never a silent guess.

live — the contract, workingsigned

It’s for: scoring deal risk from the data room.
It can’t: price illiquid assets.
Hands back: anything else → your analyst.
— ask it something —

answers openly canned — the contract is the demo, not a model

Before you decide — eight people, eight vantage points

Eight people who worked with me, unedited.

The engineer built the platform, the manager ran the team, the designer sat on the next desk — none of them owes the others agreement.

“Over the past four years at Talon, Arpit has been instrumental in shaping four distinct products from the ground up. His user-focused designs are remarkably intuitive yet adept at handling complex workflows… If you need a designer who excels at combining strategic vision with practical execution, Arpit is the person to call.”
Anant EastCTO at Talon Outdoor
“Arpit is a thorough, detail oriented designer who leaves no stone unturned. Having Arpit on the team meant that we understood the full context of every user flow or design decision made.”
Iraia O’HareAd Tech Product Manager · Arpit’s client
“I worked with Arpit for over 5 years as Tech Lead on Talon’s Atlas and Plato platforms… Arpit consistently asked the right questions early, translated ambiguous business goals into concrete user flows, and turned those into rapid, testable prototypes well before requirements were fully locked down. That speed let engineering and product validate direction early instead of building in the dark.”
Pradip HudekarTech Lead on Talon’s Atlas & Plato platforms
“Arpit consistently demonstrated exceptional speed, creativity, and attention to detail… his ability to present multiple design options along with clear pros and cons made it much easier for different stakeholders to make informed decisions and align quickly.”
Sanjesh AnandaSoftware Engineering Leader · built the AdTech platform with Arpit
“We were part of the same account and worked across multiple product streams… What stood out to me the most was the impact his thinking had on the product. His ideas were not just about improving the user experience they often made the team step back and rethink the problem itself. In some cases, his ideas even changed the direction of the product… I see Arpit as someone who brings true product leadership with a strong foundation in UX.”
Dheeraj KarandeSolutions Consultant at Sahaj · same account, multiple product streams
“I was amazed at the speed with which he refined and redefined business processes through process engineering, quickly turning ideas into a working prototype to validate the solution… Watching him use AI to redefine how discovery and ideation can be done was a big learning for me. Coming from a dev background, he’s able to wear the hat of both a developer and a product designer — one of his biggest strengths.”
Priyadarshan PatilOffice Lead, Sahaj Hyderabad · same team
“Arpit has worked with me for years and I value his honesty and hard work. He’s been an integral part of my staff… involved in all facets of the team, from design to development to hiring and onboarding of new members.”
Ryan KershnerUX Design Leader · managed Arpit directly
“Arpit teams up with designers very well, not only does he flawlessly execute the UI implementations but he pushes back on design decisions using his UX expertise… I’d recommend Arpit to any team looking to improve their final product.”
Katie AlterioProduct Designer · same team

These are excerpts. The full set, unedited, on LinkedIn ↗ (opens in a new tab)

One seat — Staff, Principal or founding · full-time, contract or fractional

One seat. Yours to offer.

LOOP AIR — BOARDING PASSremote · non-stop
INDYOU
PASSENGERMaheshwari / A
CLASSStaff · Principal · Founding
SEAT1 of 1
CARRY-ON16 yrs · receipts
STATUSFull-time · contract · fractional
GATEOpen · remote