About Yash Shah
I am a software engineer based in the Chicago area, with over 11 years of experience designing and building enterprise software, distributed systems, and cloud-native platforms.
I still judge a system by whether someone can operate it on a bad day, and whether the result is visible. A long list of tools does not change that.
A master's in information technology came early. A master's in finance came later, while I was already building investment software. The finance degree was a way to read the decisions that software was supporting, not a change of profession.
What Interests Me
The questions I keep working on:
- How can AI improve complex financial and enterprise workflows?
- How should intelligent systems be designed for reliability, explainability, and human oversight?
- Where can cloud-native architecture and applied AI create measurable business value?
How I Work
I would rather ship a system someone can own than a design that only looks complete in a diagram.
- Start with the problem, then keep the design small enough to operate.
- Leave a person accountable for what an automated system does.
- Treat cost, security, and failure as part of the design.
- Prefer an outcome that can be checked over an architecture that can only be described.
Professional Background
I started in software engineering on business systems: telecom billing support, a textile-mill ERP, and payment-audit software where the result was money found.
Distributed systems and cloud architecture came next. As a consultant I worked on a hybrid cloud migration for a commercial bank and on scheduling APIs for midstream logistics, including infrastructure as code inside someone else's production environment.
Investment management technology followed. At Morningstar the work was AWS modernization, account onboarding, and vendor integration, where cost, operator time, and a failed workflow were the feedback.
Applied AI is the current work: engineering workflows that use language models for retrieval, diagnostics, and automation, with a clear stop where a person still has to decide.
Personal Philosophy
कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन।
मा कर्मफलहेतुर्भूर्मा ते सङ्गोऽस्त्वकर्मणि॥
Reading & Influences
Bhagavad Gita · Vyasa
Do the work, and don't clutch the outcome.
Chanakya Niti · Chanakya
Clear counsel on wealth, conduct, and power.
The Art of War · Sun Tzu
Position, timing, and don't fight the expensive battle.
Never Split the Difference · Chris Voss and Tahl Raz
Negotiation is listening. The middle is not automatically the right deal.
The Personal MBA · Josh Kaufman
The business ideas, without the classroom.
An Entire MBA in 1 Course · Chris Haroun
Course. The broad MBA map.
The Intelligent Investor · Benjamin Graham
Margin of safety, and the difference between price and value.
When Genius Failed · Roger Lowenstein
Long-Term Capital Management. Leverage and brilliance are not the same as surviving the trade.
