Hassaan Waqar
📍 Indiana, USA
Hey, I'm Hassaan 👋

AI Product Manager
Design Strategist

Bridging product strategy, design, and AI. Technically fluent, design-driven, and passionate, I build alongside cross-functional teams to deliver user-centric products from concept to launch.

🎓 MS UX Design, Purdue 🚀 AI Products 🌍 Open to US & Europe
3+
Years as
product manager
20+
Projects
shipped
7+
Gen-AI products
launched
300+
Design students
taught
About Me

The human
behind the work.

HW
Hassaan Waqar
Product Manager · AI Builder · UX Strategist

Originally from Lahore, Pakistan. My path has been cross-disciplinary by design: a CS undergraduate, a stint as a Product Builder at a fast-paced venture studio, a Master's in UX Design at Purdue, and now AI PM at a fintech startup in California. That breadth lets me move between the technical, the strategic, and the human layer.

I've shipped products at pace, handled ambiguity, run experiments, failed, iterated, and learned — always in close collaboration with product and engineering teams, keeping everyone aligned on the product vision and business goals, and taking full ownership of what I build. What drives me is the rationale behind the design and the 'why' behind every product decision — who we're building for, and what they actually need. That's my version of Start with Why.

🧪 Product Experimenter 🏗️ Builder Mindset 📊 Data-driven 📚 Design Instructor 🌍 Global Perspective
Product Philosophy & Values
  • 💛Fall in love with the user, not your idea.
    The best products come from obsessing over real frustrations, not defending assumptions.
  • 🤝Great products are built together.
    Alignment and empathy across teams is a product skill — not a soft skill.
  • 🧪Experiment fast, learn faster.
    Speed-to-learning always beats speed-to-shipping. Run the test, read the signal.
  • 🚀Ship it, then make it right.
    Real users teach you what no roadmap can. Get it in front of people early.
  • 💥Every failure is a hypothesis confirmed.
    Failure isn't the opposite of progress — it's often the fastest path to it.
  • 📊Data informs, humans decide.
    Metrics tell you what happened. Judgment — shaped by context and empathy — tells you what to do.
  • 🤖Automate the repetitive, protect the creative.
    AI is a collaborator, not a replacement. Use it to move faster — never to think less.
Selected Work

Projects I'm
proud of.

Hover a card to preview. Click to view the full case study.

01
01 — AI Campaign Design
TRAIL ARG

TRAIL: An AI Learning Game at Purdue

"How do you make 1,500 people curious about AI in one night? I had 10 months to find the answer."

AIGame DesignGoogle × Purdue10 Months
TRAIL — AI Learning Game
Lead PM & Designer
10 months
Purdue Online
Google LLC

TRAIL is a mystery-driven Alternate Reality Game where students stepped into the role of investigators, uncovering the disappearance of a fictional Purdue professor through physical clues scattered across campus and digital puzzle levels, all powered by AI-generated assets.

Google and Purdue Online co-hosted the inaugural AI Summit in Nov 2024. They needed campus-wide excitement, not another email campaign. I proposed an ARG where AI was simultaneously the tool and the subject.

I managed 5 stakeholders across two orgs, built a 10-month roadmap, and ran digital and physical production in parallel, leveraging Midjourney, ElevenLabs, and Suno throughout.

500+participants
1,500+at Summit
$25ksecured
View full case study →
02
02 — UX + Physical Design
Children's Museum

Paint a Warrior — Children's Museum of Indianapolis

"The kiosk was outdated and leaving children disengaged within seconds. We redesigned it from the ground up."

UX DesignPhysical+DigitalChildrenPurdue × CMoI
Paint a Warrior — CMoI
UX Designer & Researcher
5 months
Children's Museum of Indianapolis
10 Purdue UXD students

Partnered with the world's largest children's museum to redesign a Flash-based kiosk teaching visitors how archaeologists restored Terra Cotta Warriors. Most children disengaged within the first minute.

Replaced the outdated wheel/joystick with a dual-screen hybrid experience — an NPC archaeologist guide on the top screen, a touchscreen interaction surface below, and physical components including a mortar and pestle and textured mineral buttons.

Conducted field observations, 37 design sketches across two rounds, and two concept testing rounds — including with real children at the museum.

8design stages
10/10child rating
2test rounds
View full case study →
03
03 — Interaction + Physical
Purdue Aviation

Interactive Purdue Aviation Kiosk

"Physical interactions meet digital projection, creating an immersive exhibit for Purdue's newest terminal."

Interaction DesignRFIDArduino3 Months
Purdue Aviation Kiosk
Technical Lead
3 months
Purdue University
Arduino, P5.js, Web Sockets

Designed an interactive exhibit for the Purdue Airport terminal celebrating Purdue's aviation heritage. Collectible RFID "Purdue Heroes" cards trigger projected map content through a magnifying glass reader.

As Technical Lead, I owned all code — Arduino RFID wiring, P5.js web development, socket programming for dual-screen simultaneous display, and URL-parameter-based memory optimisation for media assets.

The exhibition was a success with students and faculty, praised for its multi-modal physical-digital interaction and smooth live delivery.

RFID+ projection
Dualscreen sync
Liveexhibition
View full case study →
04
04 — Research + Design
ChildSpace

ChildSpace — Rethinking Parental Controls

"73% of Pakistani parents don't use parental controls. Not because they don't care — the tools weren't built for them."

ResearchEmerging MarketsApp DesignThesis
ChildSpace — Parental Controls
Lead Researcher
12 months
LUMS Thesis
85 respondents

I surveyed 85 families and ran 15 usability tests — not to validate a design, but to understand a failure. Why were existing parental control apps unused in Pakistan?

Non-adoption wasn't about awareness — it was design context. Apps were built for Western, English-speaking, high-literacy parents. Pakistani parents were excluded by design, not by choice.

ChildSpace: Urdu-first, age-adaptive features, free, modeled on apps Pakistani parents already trust. Core principle: if it needs a tutorial, it's already too complex.

85surveyed
15tested
73%non-use rate
View full case study →
05
05 — AI Product · Current
Ensi AI

Ensi.ai — AI Product Strategy

"Owning the roadmap at an AI fintech startup — from experiment design to a 15% lift in user engagement."

AI ProductFintechStrategy & DesignCurrent Role
Ensi.ai — AI PM
AI Product Manager
Jun 2025
Accounting & Finance AI
California, USA

Led product strategy, design and UX to drive cross-functional alignment across Engineering, Product, and Data teams. Owned the product roadmap and authored strategic briefs moving initiatives from insight to execution.

Built retention analytics using SQL and Google Analytics, establishing KPIs that drove a 15% lift in user engagement.

40%less processing
15%engagement lift
8hrssaved/week
View full case study →
06
06 — Startup Experiments
Alt Ventures

Building at the Frontier — Alt Ventures

"4 startups. 14 months. 6 prototypes. 3 shipped. Here's how I learned to decide what NOT to build."

0-to-1Gen-AIGTM Strategy14 Months
Alt Ventures — PM Studio
Product Manager
14 months
Startup Studio
AI, E-commerce

Led product across 4 early-stage startups at Alt Ventures: AI, live e-commerce, public transport, creator economy. Each engagement was a compressed cycle — discovery to validated prototype in weeks.

Biggest win: pushing back on a startup that wanted AI features before validating the core problem. A 2-week discovery sprint saved ~3 months of engineering on the wrong thing.

Three Gen-AI products went from idea to GTM-validated: avatar generation, voice cloning, and an AI GTM strategy generator. Contributed directly to $500k in angel funding for one portfolio company.

4startups
6prototypes
$500kangel funding
View full case study →
Showing 1 of 2
Experience

The journey
so far.

🤖
2025–Now
AI Product Manager
⚡ Ensi.ai · California, USA
Driving end-to-end launch of AI-native automation features for an accounting and finance platform, reducing manual processing time by 40% and saving users 8 hours/week.
Led product strategy, design and UX to drive cross-functional alignment across Engineering, Product, and Data teams. Owned the product roadmap and authored strategic briefs moving initiatives from insight to execution. Built retention analytics using SQL and Google Analytics, establishing KPIs that drove a 15% lift in user engagement.Full-time · Jun 2025–Present
🎮
2024
Project Design Lead
🏛️ Purdue Online × Google LLC
Led end-to-end product and design strategy for TRAIL — an AI education campaign through an ARG, leading to the inaugural Google × Purdue AI Summit. 5 stakeholders, 10-month roadmap, digital + physical production.
Executed the full product and GTM strategy for an AI education campaign, designing a hybrid digital-physical experience leveraging Gen-AI tools. Secured $25k in project funding from Google and Purdue Online, and presented to 1,500+ leaders at the AI Summit in Indianapolis.Contract · Feb–Nov 2024
📚
2023–25
Graduate Instructor
📘 Purdue Polytechnic Institute
Taught 6 sections of Design Thinking in Technology, mentoring 300+ students through their first end-to-end design cycles.
Taught design thinking concepts, supervised real-world design projects, and provided constructive feedback across 6 sections. Designed semester project structures, grading rubrics, and workshop formats from scratch. Maintained a 4.6/5.0 course satisfaction score throughout the role.Part-time · Aug 2023–May 2025
🎓
2023–25
M.S. in UX Design
🏛️ Purdue University, Indiana
Studied UX Design within the Computer Graphics Technology department, with a focus on AI design, adoption of AI technologies, and creative computing across 15+ end-to-end projects.
Explored the intersection of UX, AI integration, and creative computing through hands-on projects spanning web, mobile, and physical mediums. Partnered with institutions including Google LLC and The Children's Museum of Indianapolis on real-world projects, impacting experiences for thousands of users.Education · Aug 2023–May 2025
🚀
2022–23
Product Manager
⚡ Alt Ventures
Led product across 4 early-stage startups. Shipped 3 Gen-AI products. Full discovery-to-launch cycles across AI, e-commerce, public transport.
Built 6 Figma prototypes and functional MVPs in Bubble.io. Launched and GTM-validated 3 Gen-AI products. Worked directly with founders on investor-ready narratives and go-to-market plans.Full-time · Jun 2022–Aug 2023
💻
2018–22
B.S. Computer Science
🌿 LUMS University, Lahore
CS major with a focus on Human-Computer Interaction, exploring technology solutions for low-resourced communities across ed-tech and health in the Global South.
Led HCI research projects designing for underserved communities in Pakistan, spanning digital health and educational technology. Worked alongside the University of Saarland to explore user perspectives on the security and privacy of digital devices in the Global South.Education · Aug 2018–Jun 2022
Outside of Work

Life beyond the screen.

Nature calls
Nature calls
Kayaking in Michigan
Rocky hikes
Rocky hikes
Hiking the Double-O-Arch in Utah
Exploring small towns
Exploring small towns
Rockport, MA is one of my absolute favorites
Adrenaline rush
Adrenaline rush
Jumped out of a plane. Would do it again.
Catching flights across the US
Catching flights across the US
Every landscape from above tells a different story
Football sessions
Football sessions
Try scoring a goal past me!
Chasing coastlines
Chasing coastlines
The Beavertail Lighthouse, Newport RI — worth every cold gust
Boiler Up
Boiler Up
I love Purdue for life ❤️
Onto the next chapter
Onto the next chapter
Graduating Purdue with a smile on my face
Streets of New York
Streets of New York
SoHo at midnight hits different
Night walks by Navy Pier
Night walks by Navy Pier
Solitude within the Windy City at night
Reflecting through Cloud Gate
Reflecting through Cloud Gate
Surrounded by skyscrapers in Chicago
Interactive museums
Interactive museums
Learning at the MIT Museum in Boston
Visiting art galleries
Visiting art galleries
Hours disappear inside The Art Institute of Chicago
Nature calls
Nature calls
Kayaking in Michigan
Rocky hikes
Rocky hikes
Hiking the Double-O-Arch in Utah
Exploring small towns
Exploring small towns
Rockport, MA is one of my absolute favorites
Adrenaline rush
Adrenaline rush
Jumped out of a plane. Would do it again.
Catching flights across the US
Catching flights across the US
Every landscape from above tells a different story
Football sessions
Football sessions
Try scoring a goal past me!
Chasing coastlines
Chasing coastlines
The Beavertail Lighthouse, Newport RI — worth every cold gust
Boiler Up
Boiler Up
I love Purdue for life ❤️
Onto the next chapter
Onto the next chapter
Graduating Purdue with a smile on my face
Streets of New York
Streets of New York
SoHo at midnight hits different
Night walks by Navy Pier
Night walks by Navy Pier
Solitude within the Windy City at night
Reflecting through Cloud Gate
Reflecting through Cloud Gate
Surrounded by skyscrapers in Chicago
Interactive museums
Interactive museums
Learning at the MIT Museum in Boston
Visiting art galleries
Visiting art galleries
Hours disappear inside The Art Institute of Chicago

Let's build
something great.

Currently open to full-time PM roles in the US and Europe. If you're working on something interesting, or just want to talk product, I'd love to hear from you.