About
I'm Talha Azfar, and I work where business operations meet system design.
CTO at Aetarix. My work focuses on translating complex business operations into software systems that are practical, secure, and built to evolve.
Current role
CTO at Aetarix
At Aetarix, I help translate operational problems into technical requirements, system architecture and engineering direction for custom business platforms. That means engaging with the problems themselves — not just the code — before any architecture decision gets made.
Problems I work on
Workflow and process automation
Turning ad hoc operational processes into structured, auditable systems.
Permissions and authorization
Where “who may do what, when” needs to be modelled explicitly, not assumed.
AI-enabled business systems
Where a model genuinely helps, and where it needs governance and human review.
Business-to-technology translation
Turning how a business actually operates into requirements an engineering team can build against.
Architecture philosophy
The simplest architecture that responsibly meets the requirement is the right one.
Sophistication isn't a virtue in itself. Requirements, scale, risk, budget, and the capability of the team who will maintain the system are all part of the specification.
How I evaluate a technical decision
01
Requirements
Does it serve what the business actually needs?
02
Security
What becomes possible that should not be?
03
Reliability
How does it behave when something fails?
04
Cost
Build cost and running cost, honestly stated.
05
Scale
The scale that is real, not the scale that flatters.
06
Maintainability
Can this team keep it healthy in two years?
Background
Current practical experience
Right now, most of my hands-on work is on a substantial workflow-driven platform for a service business — covering multi-stage operations, organizational and responsibility boundaries, permissions, structured data, document handling, communications, automation, and, where appropriate, governed AI capabilities.
Capabilities I'm developing
I'm continuing to build depth in software engineering, databases, AWS and cloud architecture, DevOps, security, distributed systems, and practical AI engineering. I'd rather be upfront about what's still developing than overstate where I am.
I document this work as I do it — including the parts still being figured out — rather than presenting early-stage thinking as settled doctrine.
Prior software development
Before this role, I worked across frontend and full-stack development — React applications, API integrations, backend systems, database design, and operational business software.
Education
BS Data Science
Let's discuss a difficult system decision.
If the problem you're working on is architectural rather than cosmetic, I'm glad to think about it with you.