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Dara Afraz

dara.pm

Timeline

Two eras, one career—split at the public launch of ChatGPT. Overnight, product work rewired from bespoke ML and careful UX toward conversational UIs, autonomous agents, and a reshaped future of work.

B.C. / A.C. = Before ChatGPT / After ChatGPT (a wink at the usual calendar abbreviations).

A.C.

After ChatGPT

Industrial AI at BeyondAI—knowledge bases, RAG, symbolic agents, and mission-critical UIs where operators still have to trust what the model implies.

  1. June 2024 — Present

    Senior Product Manager – Platform & Agentic AI

    BeyondAI

    Leading product development for AI-powered industrial systems serving Fortune 500 energy and manufacturing clients:

    • Lead development of anomaly detection systems deployed in process-critical industrial environments, improving operational safety and reducing unplanned downtime
    • Architect RAG-enabled knowledge bases serving operational decision-making for energy sector clients
    • Design symbolic agent workflows and agentification patterns for industrial operations
    • Establish cross-functional alignment across engineering, operations, and commercial teams on multi-year product roadmaps
    • Define success metrics and KPIs for measuring operational impact in safety-critical deployments

  2. December 2022 — December 2024

    Product Design Lead – Knowledge-Base Operations Initiative

    BeyondAI

    • Designed and shipped knowledge management systems enabling faster operational decision-making
    • Led R&D partnership with Caltech on autonomous racing program (Indy Autonomous Challenge)
    • Delivered ground station UI for real-time telemetry and vehicle performance monitoring at 200+ mph
    • Translated research prototypes into operator-centric mission-critical interfaces

B.C.

Before ChatGPT

Research platforms, government programs, adaptive learning—when "AI" usually meant custom pipelines and domain-heavy interfaces, long before chat became the default surface everywhere.

  1. September 2013 — December 2022

    Product & Design Leadership – Government & Research Systems

    UCLA Psychology Department & Insight Learning Technology

    9 years leading product development for learning technology platforms serving NASA, DoD, and research institutions (Caltech, UCLA, AAA Foundation):

    • Shipped training systems for NASA technologists and DoD educators
    • Led technical product management for adaptive learning platforms deployed across government and academic research environments
    • Managed cross-functional teams through complex R&D-to-production transitions

Get in touch

dara@dara.pm

Resume — available on request.