{
  "generatedAt": "2026-09-06",
  "profile": {
    "name": "Ashwin Sharma",
    "shortName": "Ashwin",
    "role": "Principal Product Manager",
    "location": "Sydney, Australia",
    "headline": "I build the systems behind high-volume transactions",
    "bridge": "From consumer payments to ecommerce delivery",
    "summary": "Principal Product Manager working across payments, shipping and logistics software, integrations, public APIs, operational UX, and products designed for AI agents.",
    "current": "Currently building ecommerce shipping software for people, integrated systems, developers, and AI agents.",
    "email": "ashwin4484@gmail.com",
    "canonicalUrl": "https://ashwinsharma.info/"
  },
  "projects": [
    {
      "id": "integration-layer",
      "index": "01",
      "title": "The integration layer behind ecommerce shipping",
      "summary": "Connected commerce platforms, order systems, and warehouse software to shipping services.",
      "status": "SHIPPED / EVOLVING",
      "period": "SHIPPIT / 2023–2026",
      "domain": "ECOMMERCE SHIPPING",
      "stage": [
        "receive",
        "dispatch",
        "track"
      ],
      "operator": [
        "system",
        "developer",
        "person"
      ],
      "problem": "Retailers already run orders through commerce platforms, order-management systems, and warehouse tools. Shipping software has to meet the order where it already lives.",
      "decision": "Treat the integration layer as a product with its own contracts, mappings, events, failure states, and adoption experience.",
      "work": "Owned product direction across upstream integrations. Shipped webhook controls, event filtering, sensitive-data controls, custom-field mapping, and native automation links including Klaviyo and Zapier.",
      "outcome": "Made shipping capabilities available inside the systems merchants already operate.",
      "evidence": [
        {
          "label": "KLAVIYO SHIPPING INTEGRATION",
          "url": "https://ashwinsharma-pm.github.io/shippit-klaviyo/"
        },
        {
          "label": "A YEAR BUILDING AT SHIPPIT",
          "url": "https://ashwinblog.substack.com/p/a-year-of-growth-at-shippit?r=7qdp3"
        }
      ],
      "skills": [
        "INTEGRATION PRODUCTS",
        "WEBHOOKS",
        "B2B ADOPTION",
        "SYSTEM UX"
      ]
    },
    {
      "id": "api-cli-mcp",
      "index": "02",
      "title": "A shipping API built for the next operator",
      "summary": "Shaping a public API that developers, integrated software, and AI agents can operate.",
      "status": "DIRECTION / IN PROGRESS",
      "period": "SHIPPIT / CURRENT",
      "domain": "DEVELOPER PRODUCTS",
      "stage": [
        "receive",
        "promise",
        "parcel",
        "carrier",
        "dispatch",
        "track",
        "recover"
      ],
      "operator": [
        "system",
        "developer",
        "agent"
      ],
      "problem": "An API can carry critical work and still be hard to evolve. Weak versioning, identity, documentation, testing, and migration turn every improvement into negotiation with the past.",
      "decision": "Frame the public API as a product contract. Give REST, command-line tools, and Model Context Protocol tools distinct jobs on top of shared shipping capabilities.",
      "work": "Set direction for versioned contracts, scoped identity, structured errors, explicit states, safe next actions, idempotency, event loops, testing, diagnostics, migration, and governed agent actions.",
      "outcome": "A product direction for software that can be operated by people, partners, coding agents, and approved business agents without giving each surface a different product.",
      "evidence": [
        {
          "label": "BUILD SHIPPING SOFTWARE FOR AGENTS",
          "url": "https://ashwinsharma-pm.github.io/build-shippit-for-agents/"
        },
        {
          "label": "DEVELOPER + AGENT EXPERIENCE TEARDOWN",
          "url": "https://ashwinsharma-pm.github.io/developer-agent-experience-teardown/"
        }
      ],
      "skills": [
        "API STRATEGY",
        "DEVELOPER EXPERIENCE",
        "CLI",
        "MCP",
        "AI PRODUCT DIRECTION"
      ]
    },
    {
      "id": "parcel-allocation",
      "index": "03",
      "title": "Smarter parcel allocation for complex orders",
      "summary": "Designed an allocation algorithm that assigns order items to the right parcels before label creation and dispatch.",
      "status": "SHIPPED",
      "period": "SHIPPIT / RECENT",
      "domain": "SHIPPING DECISION SYSTEMS",
      "stage": [
        "parcel",
        "dispatch"
      ],
      "operator": [
        "person",
        "system"
      ],
      "problem": "An order is not always a parcel. Split items, different packaging, and warehouse reality make allocation both a decision problem and an operating task.",
      "decision": "Expose the parcel decision clearly, reduce repeated work, and make the system state understandable before booking.",
      "work": "Mapped the existing flow, designed the target interaction, and worked through the allocation rules and exceptions with engineering and operations.",
      "outcome": "A more legible path from order contents to executable shipments.",
      "evidence": [
        {
          "label": "PARCEL ALLOCATION: BEFORE / AFTER",
          "url": "https://ashwinsharma.info/assets/parcel-allocation-before-after.html"
        }
      ],
      "skills": [
        "WORKFLOW DESIGN",
        "DECISION LOGIC",
        "PROTOTYPING",
        "OPERATIONAL UX"
      ]
    },
    {
      "id": "delivery-estimates",
      "index": "04",
      "title": "Delivery promises before checkout",
      "summary": "Built a predictive delivery-estimate product so shoppers can understand when an order is likely to arrive before they buy.",
      "status": "SHIPPED",
      "period": "SHIPPIT / 2024–2025",
      "domain": "DELIVERY EXPERIENCE",
      "stage": [
        "promise"
      ],
      "operator": [
        "person",
        "system",
        "developer"
      ],
      "problem": "A shipping option without a credible arrival window pushes uncertainty into checkout.",
      "decision": "Expose a predictive estimate through reusable product and API surfaces, with fallback behaviour when confidence is limited.",
      "work": "Defined the product behaviour, API response, fallback logic, integration path, and partner adoption plan.",
      "outcome": "A delivery promise that can appear before checkout and travel across merchant experiences.",
      "evidence": [
        {
          "label": "PREDICTIVE DELIVERY ESTIMATES",
          "url": "https://ashwinsharma-pm.github.io/"
        }
      ],
      "skills": [
        "PREDICTION PRODUCTS",
        "API DESIGN",
        "CHECKOUT UX",
        "ADOPTION"
      ]
    },
    {
      "id": "tracking-experience",
      "index": "05",
      "title": "Tracking that explains what happens next",
      "summary": "Redesigned a high-volume parcel-tracking surface around clarity, trust, and the next useful action.",
      "status": "SHIPPED",
      "period": "SHIPPIT / RECENT",
      "domain": "POST-PURCHASE EXPERIENCE",
      "stage": [
        "track",
        "recover"
      ],
      "operator": [
        "person"
      ],
      "problem": "Tracking pages often expose carrier events without explaining what they mean to the person waiting.",
      "decision": "Design around customer questions: where the parcel is, whether it is on time, and what happens next.",
      "work": "Restructured status hierarchy, delivery context, event history, and exception communication.",
      "outcome": "A clearer customer surface for routine progress and delivery uncertainty.",
      "evidence": [
        {
          "label": "TRACKING EXPERIENCE REVAMP",
          "url": "https://ashwinsharma-pm.github.io/tracking-page-revamp/"
        }
      ],
      "skills": [
        "CONSUMER UX",
        "INFORMATION DESIGN",
        "SERVICE STATES",
        "TRUST"
      ]
    },
    {
      "id": "mobile-payment-flow",
      "index": "06",
      "title": "The mobile payment path from discovery to outcome",
      "summary": "Led the payment path inside Paytm's 70M+ monthly transacting-user super app.",
      "status": "SHIPPED",
      "period": "PAYTM / JAN 2021–JUL 2023",
      "domain": "MOBILE PAYMENTS",
      "stage": [],
      "operator": [
        "person"
      ],
      "problem": "A payment can fail before money moves. People must find the right recipient, verify who they are paying, choose a payment method, authorise securely, and understand what happened next.",
      "decision": "Design one confidence path: prioritise repeat payees, make search fast, show enough identity to prevent mistakes, and keep payment and outcome states clear.",
      "work": "Led product work across mobile-number and UPI-ID discovery, contact search, recipient ranking, bank and card integrations, amount entry, authorisation, success, failure, and repeat payments. Used behaviour data to redesign discovery: 75% of visitors attempted to search, repeat-payment success was strongest, and first-time-payment success was weakest.",
      "outcome": "Turned a fragmented set of payment decisions into one mobile flow built for speed, confidence, and repeat use.",
      "evidence": [
        {
          "label": "P2P PAYMENTS VIA MOBILE NUMBER",
          "url": "https://ashwinblog.substack.com/p/building-p2p-payments-via-mobile?r=7qdp3"
        },
        {
          "label": "DESIGNING FOR HIGH-SCALE MOBILE PRODUCTS",
          "url": "https://ashwinblog.substack.com/p/designing-for-mobile-phones?r=7qdp3"
        },
        {
          "label": "PAYTM FY2022 SCALE DISCLOSURE",
          "url": "https://paytm.com/document/ir/annual-reports/annual-report-2021-22.pdf"
        }
      ],
      "skills": [
        "UPI",
        "MOBILE PAYMENTS",
        "FUNNEL DESIGN",
        "IDENTITY + TRUST",
        "PRODUCT ANALYTICS",
        "TRANSACTION STATES"
      ]
    },
    {
      "id": "p2p-payments",
      "index": "07",
      "title": "Payments with identity, context, and history",
      "summary": "Designed Paytm Chat payments for a product used by 25M+ people each week.",
      "status": "SHIPPED",
      "period": "PAYTM / JAN 2021–JUL 2023",
      "domain": "CONSUMER PAYMENTS",
      "stage": [],
      "operator": [
        "person"
      ],
      "problem": "A transaction list confirms that money moved. It loses the person, purpose, conversation, and next action around that payment.",
      "decision": "Organise payment history around verified payee identity and a persistent one-to-one channel.",
      "work": "Led product work across verified payee details, chat-based payments, shared attachments, bill splitting, reminders, repeat payments, search, and contextual notifications.",
      "outcome": "Made payments easier to recognise, discuss, find, and repeat at consumer scale.",
      "evidence": [
        {
          "label": "PAYTM CHAT PRODUCT ESSAY",
          "url": "https://ashwinblog.substack.com/p/paytm-chat-an-easier-more-organised?r=7qdp3"
        }
      ],
      "skills": [
        "CONSUMER PRODUCT",
        "PAYMENTS",
        "IDENTITY",
        "INFORMATION DESIGN",
        "REPEAT USE"
      ]
    },
    {
      "id": "odin-assistant",
      "index": "08",
      "title": "A code-aware product teammate inside Slack",
      "summary": "Built an internal assistant that answers how shipping products work from a living view of the codebase.",
      "status": "PROTOTYPE / IN USE",
      "period": "SHIPPIT / 2026",
      "domain": "AI PRODUCT TOOLS",
      "stage": [],
      "operator": [
        "person",
        "agent"
      ],
      "problem": "Product knowledge fragments across documentation, conversations, and implementation detail. The answer changes as the product changes.",
      "decision": "Bring code-backed product answers into the communication surface teams already use.",
      "work": "Designed and built the product concept, retrieval path, response shape, and Slack experience.",
      "outcome": "A working example of AI reducing the distance between a product question and grounded product knowledge.",
      "evidence": [
        {
          "label": "ODIN: AI SLACKBOT",
          "url": "https://odinslackbot-production.up.railway.app/"
        }
      ],
      "skills": [
        "AI PRODUCT",
        "KNOWLEDGE SYSTEMS",
        "PROTOTYPING",
        "SLACK UX"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "writing": [
    {
      "id": "shipping-year-map",
      "title": "Mapping a year of shipping product work on the journey",
      "description": "How roughly 27 releases connect across an ecommerce shipping system.",
      "category": "ECOMMERCE SHIPPING",
      "url": "https://ashwinblog.substack.com/p/mapping-a-year-of-shipping-product?r=7qdp3"
    },
    {
      "id": "p2p-mobile-number",
      "title": "Building P2P payments via mobile number",
      "description": "The product work behind a simpler mobile payment flow.",
      "category": "CONSUMER PAYMENTS",
      "url": "https://ashwinblog.substack.com/p/building-p2p-payments-via-mobile?r=7qdp3"
    },
    {
      "id": "mobile-app-design",
      "title": "The challenge of designing for mobile apps",
      "description": "Home, traffic, and UX inside a high-scale mobile product.",
      "category": "MOBILE PRODUCT DESIGN",
      "url": "https://ashwinblog.substack.com/p/designing-for-mobile-phones?r=7qdp3"
    },
    {
      "id": "working-with-designers",
      "title": "The Craft of Working with Designers",
      "description": "Three practices for making product and design work better together.",
      "category": "PRODUCT CRAFT",
      "url": "https://ashwinblog.substack.com/p/the-art-of-working-with-designers?r=7qdp3"
    },
    {
      "id": "paytm-chat",
      "title": "Paytm Chat - An easier, more organised way to make & store your payments",
      "description": "Identity, context, and history around peer-to-peer payments.",
      "category": "CONSUMER PAYMENTS",
      "url": "https://ashwinblog.substack.com/p/paytm-chat-an-easier-more-organised?r=7qdp3"
    }
  ]
}