Meet Jai Raj Choudhary: Indian-origin techie who says working 9-to-9 changed his life

Moving to San Francisco and joining a fast-growing artificial intelligence (AI) startup changed everything for 24-year-old Indian-origin engineer Jai Raj Choudhary, who says the city’s relentless work culture pushed him to grow faster than any traditional job could.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 conventional software and data background into an intense startup environment reshaped his career. “We work 9-to-9, six days a week,” he said, describing how life goes in the Californian tech hub, according to the Business Insider.

How the AI journey began

His journey into AI began in graduate school. Between 2023 and 2025, he pursued a Master’s degree in artificial intelligence, initially starting out in a data-focused role.

Around that time, large language models were becoming increasingly practical for real-world use. Choudhary said AI began to feel less like a purely research-driven discipline and more like an engineering challenge that could be built and deployed at scale.He joined StackAI in July after a determined outreach effort. As a student, he had already used the company’s platform and began messaging its co-founder repeatedly on LinkedIn.

He shared feedback, posted about the product, and suggested improvements. When the company entered a rapid growth phase, he applied and went through six rounds of interviews before securing the role.

What the role offers

Now, Choudhary's work involves designing architectures for AI agents. He believes his earlier grounding in data helped him stand out. Understanding data quality, client edge cases, performance metrics and failure modes in AI and large language model systems gave him an advantage.Interestingly, he said his formal degree was not a deciding factor during interviews. “I know back-end, I know how to talk to data, and I understand the patterns that it follows,” he told his interviewers.He added, “They said that was the perfect background and they were able to help me grow from there to become an actual AI engineer.” Choudhary was asked about his coding skills, particularly in Python, and was given a take-home assignment to demonstrate how he approached building solutions.Only after he had started working did colleagues ask about his academic background. While he values his time at university and credits it with helping him explore his interests, he admits he does not directly apply much of what he studied in graduate school to his current day-to-day tasks.

Moving to San Francisco

However, the move to San Francisco proved decisive. “Moving to San Francisco made a huge difference in my career. This city is a different beast,” he said. He added, “When you come here, it's a whole different culture because we don't work 9-to-5, cushy jobs. We work 9-to-9, six days a week. You wake up, you think about the problem that a client had, and you sleep thinking about what isn't fixed yet.”Choudhary said the city is built around ambition and how casual coffee trips often turn into networking opportunities. “In San Francisco, even if you go out for a coffee, you'll meet at least two founders who are working on something related to what you're doing,” he said.Being surrounded by others tackling similar technical challenges has helped him refine his thinking and problem-solving approach.

Studying while working?

Despite long hours at the office, much of his time is still devoted to learning. “Even if I spend 12 hours in the office, seven to eight of those hours I'm studying, and then three to four hours, I'm actually writing the code,” he said. The rapid expansion of AI courses and resources can feel overwhelming, but he focuses on practical insights from founders and builders.

He credits online content, including YouTube lectures, with helping him stay informed while commuting or exercising.For Choudhary, joining a startup before feeling fully prepared was a calculated risk that paid off. “The best decision I made for my career was joining a startup for a job that I didn't quite have the experience in and learning at StackAI,” he said.