System view
Find the failure points, tighten controls, and design safeguards the team can actually maintain.
Product & systems leadership for trustworthy software.
Partnering with teams who ship responsibly.
Contact Kanav via emailKanav Jain
Independent product and systems leader for high-stakes software.
Product and systems leadership
I turn moral risk into enforceable constraints—so institutions are forced to decide, not defer.
I help teams make their product safe to trust: clear guardrails, visible accountability, and workflows that hold up under pressure.
Start with a reliability review; we can widen scope after.
Read the theory of workSystem view
Find the failure points, tighten controls, and design safeguards the team can actually maintain.
Human view
Listen to operators and customers to see where the product forces workarounds, then design changes that stick.
At a glance
When teams call me
Pressure is high and guardrails feel optional—teams want visibility on where the system bends.
View details →How we start
We trace incidents, map override paths, and translate risk into a clear constraint map.
View details →First engagement
A short, focused audit that outputs the first set of safety controls to ship.
View details →Policies and configs are written down, but the product can’t enforce them when it matters.
Risky actions are invisible in the audit log or lack a clear owner.
Escalations route to polite dead ends instead of someone who can decide.
The system looks stable because operators stay late to compensate for design gaps.
I don’t take on systems whose business model depends on exhaustion, plausible deniability, or coercion-by-workflow. If a product requires endless intake without binding outcomes, no amount of guardrails will make it safe.
Second-half delivery
System artifacts, operational logs, and writing that keep accountability visible.
Human-readable snapshots of shipped systems.
I built a call-forwarding shield so patients never see a clinician's real number. Care teams can return calls without leaking identity.
I published real salary data so clinicians could negotiate fairly with hospitals instead of guessing their worth.
I made software that reads job contracts and points out the traps—like sneaky non-competes—before you sign.
I studied how cells ignore bad signals. That research now guides how I help software ignore harmful inputs.
I led a full safety review of our healthcare platform—checking code, policies, and office security—to keep patient data safe.
I promoted Bread.fm parties around San Francisco—booking lineups, shaping the brand with friends, and keeping the dance floor welcoming.
2024 – Present
Self-Directed
Designing safety rails for AI, health, and civic stacks.
2022 – 2024
Andwise
Co-founded Andwise with Dr. Varun Verma to deliver fiduciary-safe planning tools and expert guidance for physicians.
2021 – 2022
Transcarent
Aligned clinicians and benefits teams around completed care plans instead of engagement vanity metrics.
2019 – 2021
City of Hope / CancerCompass
Shipped oncology navigation that translated clinical protocols into clear guidance for patients and caregivers.
2018 – 2019
Rough Draft / Red Sea
Built coaching rhythms and governance templates for early-stage founders shipping regulated products.
2018 – 2019
GC Venture Fellows
Evaluated early-stage teams with diligence templates surfacing safety, governance, and traction signals together.
2017 – 2019
Red Sea Ventures
Supported seed investments and portfolio rituals that kept founder health, mission fit, and growth aligned.
2013 – 2017
Doximity
Led Dialer and clinician communication tools that safeguarded patient identity at telehealth scale.
2012 – 2013
Epic
Launched electronic health record (EHR) workflows that reduced alert fatigue while keeping patient safety checks intact.
2009 – 2012
Georgia Tech / NASA
Modeled adaptive bio-systems for resilience and signal fidelity.
Writing
Essays, notes, and audits on building trustworthy systems.
Across healthcare, bureaucracy, and customer service, systems increasingly avoid decisions while appearing responsive. This essay argues that modern governance operates by distributing exhaustion rather than delivering outcomes.
Read The Legitimacy MachineThe loading screen is a weapon. "Pending" is a governing strategy of attrition designed to make you carry the weight of the process until you give up.
Read Pending: The Politics of Non-DecisionWe keep describing our institutional crisis as one of 'belief' or 'truth.' But in practice, the bottleneck is 'standing.' An essay on why 'we hear you' is a trap, and how to distinguish between providing input and triggering obligation."
Read Not Belief. Standing.A guide to the difference between moral language and structural constraint
Read Toothless Ethics: Why Principles Don’t Stop MachinesStop assuming leadership is ignorant. "Tragic Institutionalism" argues that institutional harm is priced in, and your burnout is the fuel.
Read Assume Maximum AwarenessFrom Chicago to Gaza, AI is turning "threat scores" into self-fulfilling prophecies. A critique of epistemic laundering and the automation of state violence. AI systems like Palantir and Axon don't just predict risk, they manufacture killability.
Read The Worldview with a Gun