role engineering manager whereivani.com · St. Louis location Chicago, IL · remote
// about me
Hi! I'm Saarth, an engineering manager working remotely from Chicago, spending my days helping a
small, engineering-forward startup build wireless sensing technology. I love working with smart people,
and I thrive on bridging the gap between hard technical problems and the people who have to
solve them together.
Telling people the truth and giving tough feedback early is critical. I trust the people I work with to act on honest feedback. I want to be clearing obstacles and reliably available, not hovering and micromanaging.
02
Gather widely, then decide.
I like getting all available perspectives before deciding, but I don't want delays waiting for consensus. A good call on Tuesday beats a perfect one three weeks out. The team that's built to iterate needs decisive calls.
03
Kill the riskiest assumption.
Every project has at least one major assumption that, if wrong, takes the whole thing down. It's almost never the hardest technical piece. Find that assumption, test it, and let the result tell you whether the rest is worth your time.
04
Define it before you build it.
The most expensive bugs are the ones in the requirements. I would rather spend a week arguing about what "done" means than three months building the wrong thing well. Writing it down is not bureaucracy; it is how a team disagrees before it's costly instead of after.
05
Process should fit the problem, not the other way around.
I do not believe in process for the sake of process. What works for two people building something new is wrong for twenty people shipping to customers, and vice versa. Process should serve the work, not the other way around.
06
Ambition for the team, not for yourself.
I'm not the kind of person who puts my name on everything, and for a while I thought that held me back. It didn't. The team that knows you won't take their moment is the team that takes it. If my team looks good, I did my job.
// timeline
2012 · Olin College · Needham, MA
Engineering is a team sport.
I started my undergrad at Olin College, a small engineering school built on the theory that engineering is a team sport and that you may as well start practicing on day one. Hands-on, spiral learning led to countless memorable projects (ask me about “poop monkey” if you want a good story) and three lessons that stuck:
Lifelong learning. Fail early and often, and learn quickly from your mistakes.
Committed teams. Solving hard technical problems takes a team that's all the way in.
Openness to change. Stay open to change even when it brings inconvenience, inefficiency, and the risk of failure, because it also brings the best and most innovative solutions.
2016 · Ivani
Capstone → Firmware Engineer → Technical Team Lead.
I completed my senior capstone with Ivani and graduated from Olin. The capstone brief was broad (find unique applications for low-power wireless mesh), and we landed on a smart outlet cover for hospital building management. In one year we researched the market, built a working prototype, and filed a patent that was later granted.
I joined full time as a firmware engineer just as the company came out of stealth. A startup founded by Olin alumni, working on cutting-edge wireless sensing, was a dream opportunity.
2019 · Ivani · St. Louis, MO
Engineering Manager.
As the technology and the partnerships solidified and the engineering team grew, I was one of two technical leads promoted into management. I kept writing technical requirements and setting direction for the engineering team, and I also began reporting directly to the CTO, helping set company direction and strategy.
2020 · Wharton Business School
Leadership & Management Certificate.
I took the Wharton certificate because I wanted to build on my management skills. The course confirmed a lot of my gut instincts, and helped me understand the research and theory behind why they work.
2021 · Cornell
Systems Design Certificate.
I took the Cornell course to strengthen my systems design skills and to get more rigorous about how I scope and plan projects through practical tools like context diagrams, risk analysis, and decision matrices.
2025 · Ivani
sensify™ launches at a global scale.
A major milestone for Ivani and the whole team. The partnership that I got to lead throughout the years involved multiple trips out to their HQ, working alongside their engineering team on integration, helping design valid tests, developing beta launch plans, and overall helping support how the technology would fit into their ecosystem. sensify™ was finally available to the public.
how it works
sensify turns a set of smart devices (lights,
switches, plugs, etc.) into sensors through just software. The smart devices are already talking
to each other. When a person moves through the space, their body changes the network diagnostics between
those devices, and that change provides the underlying data for sensify.
These triggers can be used for a variety of different applications — lighting
control, security, aging in place, and more.
No cameras. No extra hardware. Not tracking your phone.
Move your cursor (a human) inside the triangle (a room with 3 smart bulbs)
sensify has detected your cursor
(human) inside the triangle (a room with 3 smart bulbs)
2026 · The Moonshot Factory
Breakthrough Innovation Strategy Certificate.
The Moonshot Factory course built out a framework for what I'd been doing for years. The core idea: working on truly important problems, finding the riskiest assumption, testing it quickly, and letting the result tell you if the rest is worth building.
next
Where the arrow points.
Continuing to push the envelope as an engineering manager at Ivani, adapting to the new AI frontier, and building things that matter.
I love exploring new spaces and familiar spaces with my camera in hand. Currently shooting on my Fujifilm X-T5 with most of the close-ups taken using a 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 lens + 2x teleconverter.
Pottery
One of my main hobbies where I can't debug my way out of a mistake. I love building with my hands and the magical surprise of when a glazed piece finally comes out of the kiln. Currently doing an independent study at Shared Floor where we have access to a cone 10 gas kiln.
