Kanav Jain

Independent product and systems leader for high-stakes software.

Working style Clear recommendations, practical controls, plain language.

Product and systems leadership

Ship reliable products when the stakes are high.

I help teams make their product safe to trust: clear guardrails, visible accountability, and workflows that hold up under pressure.

Email Kanav

Start with a reliability review; we can widen scope after.

Read recent writing →
Two vantage points Peek at system and human views

System 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.

First engagement

Start with a reliability review

Walk through the flows where people can get hurt or stuck, then choose what to tighten first.

See how I design for reliability

Signals I watch after the first review.

  • Approach

    Make risk visible, tighten guardrails, and prove the changes work in production.

  • Systems

    AI safety, clinical tools, and civic infrastructure where mistakes carry real harm.

  • Practice

    Pair design changes with logging and training so safeguards stay healthy.

3 engagement scenarios

Toggle to see how different starts change the work.

  • PATTERN

    Controls exist, but people can still push past them

    Policies and configs are written down, but the product can’t enforce them when it matters.

  • PATTERN

    Leadership can override controls without leaving a trace

    Risky actions are invisible in the audit log or lack a clear owner.

  • PATTERN

    Appeals exist but rarely change outcomes

    Escalations route to polite dead ends instead of someone who can decide.

  • PATTERN

    Reliability depends on heroics

    The system looks stable because operators stay late to compensate for design gaps.

Experience (outcome-shaped)

Human-readable snapshots of shipped systems.

Privacy Membrane — Doximity Dialer

Privacy Membrane

Doximity Dialer

I built a call-forwarding shield so patients never see a clinician's real number. Care teams can return calls without leaking identity.

Healthcare Safety by design
View details about Privacy Membrane
Market Balance — Talent Finder

Market Balance

Talent Finder

I published real salary data so clinicians could negotiate fairly with hospitals instead of guessing their worth.

Economics Incentives
View details about Market Balance
Risk Detection — Andwise NLP

Risk Detection

Andwise NLP

I made software that reads job contracts and points out the traps—like sneaky non-competes—before you sign.

Decision support Ethics
View details about Risk Detection
Adaptive Systems — Georgia Tech / NASA

Adaptive Systems

Georgia Tech / NASA

I studied how cells ignore bad signals. That research now guides how I help software ignore harmful inputs.

Systems Bio Entropy
View details about Adaptive Systems
System Hardening — Infrastructure Audit

System Hardening

Infrastructure Audit

I led a full safety review of our healthcare platform—checking code, policies, and office security—to keep patient data safe.

Audit Governance
View details about System Hardening
Social Mycelium — Bread SF

Social Mycelium

Bread SF

I promoted Bread.fm parties around San Francisco—booking lineups, shaping the brand with friends, and keeping the dance floor welcoming.

Community Ops
View details about Social Mycelium

Operational Log

2024 – Present

Product Safety Architect (Current role)

Self-Directed

Designing safety rails for AI, health, and civic stacks.

2022 – 2024

Co-founder & CPO

Andwise

Built fiduciary-safe planning tools for clinicians; paired natural language processing (NLP) review with human governance.

2021 – 2022

Product Lead, Care Navigation

Transcarent

Aligned clinicians and benefits teams around completed care plans instead of engagement vanity metrics.

2019 – 2021

Director of Product

City of Hope / CancerCompass

Shipped oncology navigation that translated clinical protocols into clear guidance for patients and caregivers.

2018 – 2019

Advisor & EIR

Rough Draft / Red Sea

Built coaching rhythms and governance templates for early-stage founders shipping regulated products.

2018 – 2019

Fellow

GC Venture Fellows

Evaluated early-stage teams with diligence templates surfacing safety, governance, and traction signals together.

2017 – 2019

MBA Associate

Red Sea Ventures

Supported seed investments and portfolio rituals that kept founder health, mission fit, and growth aligned.

2013 – 2017

Product Lead

Doximity

Led Dialer and clinician communication tools that safeguarded patient identity at telehealth scale.

2012 – 2013

Implementation

Epic

Launched electronic health record (EHR) workflows that reduced alert fatigue while keeping patient safety checks intact.

2011 – 2015

Research Assistant

Georgia Tech / NASA

Modeled adaptive bio-systems for resilience and signal fidelity.

Writing

Writing

Essays, notes, and audits on building trustworthy systems.

ESSAY

Published Dec 2025

Pending: The Politics of Non-Decision

The 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-Decision

ESSAY

Published Dec 2025

Not Belief. Standing.

We 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.

ESSAY

Published Dec 2025

Toothless Ethics: Why Principles Don’t Stop Machines

A guide to the difference between moral language and structural constraint

Read Toothless Ethics: Why Principles Don’t Stop Machines

ESSAY

Published Dec 2025

Assume Maximum Awareness

Stop assuming leadership is ignorant. "Tragic Institutionalism" argues that institutional harm is priced in, and your burnout is the fuel.

Read Assume Maximum Awareness

ESSAY

Published Dec 2025

The Worldview with a Gun

From 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

ESSAY

Published Nov 2025

Institutional Apoptosis

We build institutions for every crisis, then forget to give them an off-switch. This piece argues for “institutional apoptosis”: designing governments, programs, and platforms that know how to die before they devour the people inside them.

Read Institutional Apoptosis