Karim Mesallam
العربية

About Karim Mesallam

Karim Mesallam

I'm a software engineer and technical leader, currently serving as Deputy Manager of Frontend Engineering. I'm based in Dahab, Egypt, and I've worked professionally in web development since 2007, across product development, technical architecture, and engineering leadership.

Selected experience

Raisr 2018–2020

Engineering Team Lead, building software for Canada's private capital markets. I led the team while staying hands-on with full-stack development and platform architecture, and coached the team's Scrum practice.

Parent ApS 2016–2017

Team Leader and Technical Architect, leading web and mobile development, frontend and backend architecture, and platform engineering.

My first lead developer role began in 2009 at Tisch Creative, with responsibility for two developers, project budgets, and direct communication with clients, marketing managers, and art directors.

How I work now

Software engineering and technical leadership are the foundation of my work. Product engineer describes how I put them together today: taking responsibility across the product cycle, from understanding the problem and deciding what to build to shipping, running, and improving it. Working with AI helps me carry more of that cycle myself.

With AI agents, I break a problem into reviewable changes, decide what to delegate, and check the result against the original need. That includes reading the implementation, testing its behavior, and considering the people who will maintain it. Read the story.

I write about those decisions and talk about software and AI, mostly in Arabic, on podcasts and my own YouTube channel. I'm interested in what changes in practice, where a workflow breaks down, and what I still need to understand.

A personal project: PromptCast

I wanted a teleprompter that could show my actual desktop the right way round in the glass. That became PromptCast: a Windows-to-Android streamer with touch input, audio, and dictation. I developed it with an AI coding agent, setting the direction and testing it on my own hardware. The most useful lessons came from diagnosing the bugs. Read the story.

Before the job titles

In 2004, I ran a vBulletin forum called egyking.com. I was learning PHP, fixing database problems, and adding features as I went. Eventually the bandwidth bill got large enough that my father paid it and we shut the site down. Keeping a website running turned out to involve more than getting it online.

These days, I live in Dahab with my wife and our two dogs. Living by the Red Sea has made diving a major part of my life. I'm a divemaster and technical diver. I like understanding a system, respecting the details, and getting better at the things I care about.

That curiosity also finds its way into Linux setups, diving equipment, and side projects that get more elaborate than I intended. I like evidence, first principles, and people who care about the quality of what they build.

My Upwork record includes Top Rated Plus status and a 100% Job Success Score as of .

Elsewhere