u/pranav_mahaveer

your first 10 clients will all ask for the same thing. "we just need something simple." and you'll build them something simple. and it will break. not because you're bad at your job. because "simple" is a lie they tell themselves about a process that's actually held together with tribal knowledge, exceptions, and one guy named Dave who remembers how everything works.

the job isn't building the automation. the job is figuring out what's actually happening before you touch a single tool.

I used to start building on day one. client describes the process in a kickoff call, sounds straightforward, I go build it. two weeks later I demo it and they go "oh but sometimes the supplier sends a PDF instead of an email" or "oh but when it's a bulk order Alex handles it differently." every single time.

now I spend the first week just watching. I sit with whoever actually does the work. not the founder. not the ops manager. the person who does it every day. and I write down everything. not the process as it should work. the process as it actually works at 9pm on a friday when three things are going wrong simultaneously.

that week of watching has saved me from rebuilding projects more times than I can count.

the other thing. real data is disgusting. your test data is clean because you made it. real invoices are photos taken at an angle in bad lighting. real customer names have weird characters in them. real spreadsheets have merged cells and hidden rows and a column that says "DO NOT DELETE" with no explanation.

build for that. not for your clean CSV.

anyway. been building these systems for a while now. happy to answer questions if anyone's in the weeds on a specific automation problem. no pitch, just been down most of the roads.

your first 10 clients will all ask for the same thing. "we just need something simple." and you'll build them something simple. and it will break. not because you're bad at your job. because "simple" is a lie they tell themselves about a process that's actually held together with tribal knowledge, exceptions, and one guy named Dave who remembers how everything works.

the job isn't building the automation. the job is figuring out what's actually happening before you touch a single tool.

I used to start building on day one. client describes the process in a kickoff call, sounds straightforward, I go build it. two weeks later I demo it and they go "oh but sometimes the supplier sends a PDF instead of an email" or "oh but when it's a bulk order Alex handles it differently." every single time.

now I spend the first week just watching. I sit with whoever actually does the work. not the founder. not the ops manager. the person who does it every day. and I write down everything. not the process as it should work. the process as it actually works at 9pm on a friday when three things are going wrong simultaneously.

that week of watching has saved me from rebuilding projects more times than I can count.

the other thing. real data is disgusting. your test data is clean because you made it. real invoices are photos taken at an angle in bad lighting. real customer names have weird characters in them. real spreadsheets have merged cells and hidden rows and a column that says "DO NOT DELETE" with no explanation.

build for that. not for your clean CSV.

anyway. been building these systems for a while now. happy to answer questions if anyone's in the weeds on a specific automation problem. no pitch, just been down most of the roads.

built and shipped 100+ AI Automation systems over 2 years. the pattern that kills production agents isn't the AI making wrong decisions. it's nobody knowing WHAT the agent did, WHEN it did it, and WHY it did it.

here's how i set up internal tooling for agent observability from day one:

1. execution logging before anything else

every agent run gets a log entry. timestamp, trigger source, input payload, output, status (success / partial / failed), duration. store this in supabase or postgres, not just in your workflow tool's built in logs. workflow tool logs expire or get paginated away. your database doesn't.

2. step level tracing not just run level

knowing a run failed is useless. knowing it failed at step 4 of 9, on the enrichment API call, because the company name had a special character in it... that's actionable. log each step separately with its own status and output snapshot.

3. performance baselines

track average run duration per workflow. set a threshold. if a run takes 3x longer than baseline, flag it. slow runs are almost always a sign something upstream is degrading before it fully breaks.

4. actionable alerts not noise

slack or email alert when: a run fails 3 times in a row, error rate crosses 5% in a 1 hour window, a workflow hasn't triggered in X hours when it should have. silent workflows are scarier than erroring ones.

5. a simple internal dashboard

retool or a basic supabase ui. shows: runs today, success rate, avg duration, recent failures with error messages. takes half a day to build. saves hours of debugging every week.

6. input/output snapshots for debugging

store the actual payload that caused a failure. not just "enrichment failed." store the exact record that broke the agent so you can reproduce it locally and fix it without waiting for it to happen again in production.

the agents that run for months without intervention aren't smarter. they're better observed.

if you're running agents in production without this layer you're flying blind and you'll find out at the worst possible time.

Looking for two people who want to be the core of how SBD runs its client relationships and growth engine

SBD is an AI automation studio, clients across the globe. we build systems that run businesses. now we need people who can run the front of ours.

This is closer to a founder's right hand on the client and growth side.

what you'll actually be doing:

setting up and confirming calls with new leads, running smooth client kickoffs, being the bridge between clients and the delivery team, managing existing relationships and finding new opportunities within accounts, following up consistently, managing and updating the CRM so nothing falls through the cracks, helping grow SBD's presence on LinkedIn, contributing to lead generation efforts

what we need from you:

communication that is genuinely exceptional. not just good english but the kind of person who makes clients feel taken care of in every message and every call

smart enough to figure things out on your own without being hand held on every task

comfortable working with AI tools across CRM, lead generation, outreach, and content. if you're not already using AI to work faster you'll need to get there quickly

organised, proactive, and able to manage multiple client threads without things slipping

the details:

based in Bengaluru, hybrid role. flexible hours because our clients are global. two spots available. pay is competitive.

drop a comment or dm with a bit about yourself and why this role fits you