Jay Raj Chaudhary, an engineer of Indian origin, skyrocketed his career at an AI startup in San Francisco by adopting a demanding 9-to-6 work schedule. Leveraging his strong background in data, he played a key role in building StackAI’s AI customers.
Moving to San Francisco and joining a fast-growing artificial intelligence (AI) startup changed everything for 24-year-old Indian-origin engineer Jay Raj Chowdhury, who says the city’s cutthroat work culture pushed him to grow faster than a traditional job.Choudhary is now an AI engineer at StackAI with a no-code platform that helps users build AI agents. He said the shift from a traditional software and data background to an intense startup environment reshaped his career. “We work nine to nine, six days a week,” he said, describing what life is like in California’s tech hub, according to Business Insider.
How did the artificial intelligence journey begin?
His journey into artificial intelligence began in graduate school. Between 2023 and 2025, he earned a master’s degree in artificial intelligence, initially starting in a data-focused role.
Around that time, large language models became increasingly practical for use in the real world. Chowdhury said AI is starting to look less like a purely research-based system and more like an engineering challenge that can be built and deployed on a large scale.He joined StackAI in July after extensive networking efforts. When he was a student, he had already used the company’s platform and began messaging its co-founder frequently on LinkedIn.
He shared feedback, posted about the product and suggested improvements. When the company entered a phase of rapid growth, he applied and went through six rounds of interviews before getting the job.
What the role offers
Now, Choudhury’s work includes designing architectures for AI agents. He believes his previous knowledge of data helped him stand out. Understanding data quality, customer edge states, performance metrics, and failure modes in AI and large language modeling systems gave him an advantage.Interestingly, he said that his official testimony was not a deciding factor during the interviews. He told his interviewers: “I know how to deal with data, and I understand the patterns it follows.”“They said this was the perfect background, and they were able to help me grow from there into a real AI engineer,” he added. Chaudhary was asked about his programming skills, particularly in Python, and was given a homework assignment to demonstrate how he approaches building solutions.His colleagues did not ask about his academic background until after he started working. While he values his time at university and credits it with helping him explore his interests, he admits that he does not directly apply much of what he studied in graduate school to his current day-to-day tasks.
Move to San Francisco
However, the move to San Francisco was crucial. “Moving to San Francisco made a huge difference in my career. This city is a different beast,” he said. “When you come here, the culture is completely different because we don’t work cushy 9-to-5 jobs. We work 9-to-9, six days a week. You wake up, thinking about the problem the customer had, and you go to sleep thinking about what hasn’t been solved yet,” he added.Choudhury said the city is built on ambition and how casual coffee trips often turn into networking opportunities. “In San Francisco, even if you go out for coffee, you will meet at least a couple of founders who are working on something related to what you do,” he said.Being surrounded by others dealing with similar technical challenges has helped him refine his thinking and approach to problem solving.
Study while working?
Despite the long hours he spends in the office, much of his time is still dedicated to learning. “Even if I spend 12 hours in the office, seven to eight hours of that study, and then three to four hours, I’m actually writing code,” he said. The rapid expansion of AI courses and resources may seem overwhelming, but it focuses on practical insights from founders and builders.
He credits online content, including YouTube lectures, for helping him stay informed while commuting or exercising.For Chowdhury, joining a startup before feeling fully prepared was a calculated risk that paid off. “The best decision I made in my career was joining a startup in a role I had little experience or learning in at StackAI,” he said.
