Hi, my name is Parham 🤝

Welcome to my website. This is a space where you can learn more about my past work and blogged essays.

I am currently pursuing my Master of Science in Information Systems at the University of Washington, Michael G. Foster School of Business, graduating in June 2025.

I’m interested in solutions engineering, product/technical program management, technical consulting, and entrepreneurship.

Previously, I studied Computer Science at UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and worked as an implementation consultant for FAST Enterprises modernizing the Iowa Department of Revenue’s public portal, GovConnect.Iowa.gov.

Some things I’m proud of…

Implementation Consultant

FAST Enterprises

September 2021 — May 2024 (hybrid)

FAST Enterprises LLC is a software and consulting company specializing in providing software solutions to government agencies, primarily in the areas of Tax Administration and Driver/Vehicle Services. The product GenTax® is used by numerous tax agencies around the US and the world to manage and streamline processing and administration.

I was assigned to the Iowa Tax project as an implementation consultant, where my job was split between building software and consulting agencies to understand their business needs and how to implement the FAST software to best serve their customers.

I became a team manager after 8 months when my manager suddenly left, and I took ownership of the Iowa taxpayer portal, GovConnect.iowa.gov, serving 1.5 million customers annually, after the client team vouched for me to my Director. It ordinarily takes 3+ years of experience before becoming a manager; I was the youngest employee my Director (18 years) had seen become a manager.

This was end-to-end product development: requirement analysis, scope definition, full-stack development, testing in test and staging environments, launch, and production support. I also served as the main liaison for my subsystem’s subject-matter experts (SMEs) and users, who helped me define pain points and areas of improvement.

These are the successes that defined my time with FAST:

  • Complete full-stack re-design and implementation (using C#, SQL, and internal development tools) of the New Logon web request, used by 2,000+ customers every day. I was able to lower the Customer Abandonment Rate by over 20% in one year.

  • Launched the “Where’s My Refund?” feature, used by over 750,000 taxpayers every year.

  • Saved taxpayers 24-48 hours each time they requested account access by integrating the complex Fast Identity Verification Services (FIVS) into the New Logon and New Account web requests. This integration was the first attempt in the company.

  • Improved the customer experience by partnering with the UX consultant, author, and speaker, Cory Lebson, to design and implement a usability focus group that resulted in lowering the amount of time businesses spent on Alcoholic, Lottery, and Food/Lodging license applications by 15%. We also received fewer phone calls with questions about those steps.

  • Directed the website towards ADA compliance and following leading web accessibility best practices.

  • Helped define and write the GovConnectIowa Standards document, intended to be used as a reference and examples for our site’s functional and design standards for 80+ team of FAST developers and state agency staff.

  • Recommended and built Key Performance Indicator (KPI) dashboards for business clients and system developers to use in Production Support, saving time previously wasted diagnosing taxpayer behavior and system health.

First Place, 2021 UCLA Anderson Innovation Challenge (healthcare track)

January - May 2021 (remote)

I teamed up with 3 MBAs and a CS master’s student to compete in the UCLA Anderson cross-campus innovation challenge and won first place out of 18 teams in the Healthcare track. We created AnonNet, a synthetic data generation platform that artificially mimics the statistical characteristics of raw patient data, providing data holders the opportunity to share the full power of their raw data while under the protection of our government-grade privacy measures.

Through three rounds, we delivered a PRFAQ document, a comprehensive Business Plan, and a live pitch deck in front of a panel of judges and investors. I wrote and presented for the sections: Product, Market, and Development & Operations.

Through 40+ informational interviews that my partner, Shaan Mathur, and I conducted with medical researchers, hospital executives, venture capitalists (VCs), and business advisors, we learned that the key insights for improving patient health lie within the vast amount of patient data that medical institutions have collected worldwide. This data, though, is protected health information that should rightfully be kept private. Leveraging GenAI with differential privacy results in new revenue streams in the medical data market while enabling more research to get done.

Associate Product Manager

Bookscribs.com

May – August 2021 (remote)

Bookscribs.com was a Boston-based startup disrupting the entertainment and move-production industry with an AI-powered story adaptation platform that offered cost- and time-effective story discovery and acquisition, analysis, and customizable adaptation to scripts intended for film.

I served as the company’s first Product Manager role, bridging the gap between 2 full-stack developers, 3 data scientists, 1 QA, and 4 UX/UI designers to ensure product development and vision alignment.

Using lean Agile principles (and Asana), I also ran the team’s weekly development sprints. This is when I first realized how much I enjoyed working cross-functionally in a leadership role.

  • I frequently reviewed designs with the UX/UI team ranging from rough wireframes to high-fidelity prototypes ready for developers (using Figma).

  • I held weekly and ad-hoc 1-on-1s with developers (living around the world) to identify any blockers and ensured their development followed our product roadmap and production standards.

  • I wrote 40+ testing scenarios for Test and Staging environments for QA to perform.

  • I presented my progress and customer analysis reports bi-weekly to the CEO and COO.

People’s Choice Award

Anderson Product Innovation Challenge 2020

September - November 2020 (remote)

I partnered with 3 MBA students to compete in the UCLA Anderson Product Innovation Challenge (APIC) to envision a smarter way to maintain pool chemistry without needing a pool maintenance person. We called it PoolChemist.

We designed a robot that lives discretely on the side of your pool and takes temperature and chemical measurements in real-time, independently dispensing the right chemicals as needed. When a chemical cartridge is low in its stock, it re-orders it for you from our online store. You just have to open the package from your mail and replace the cartridge.

I designed and conducted user interviews with 15+ pool owners to understand customer pain points and pitched the product to find areas of improvement. We then explored various business models for this product and landed on charging an initial fee that pays for the robot hardware, and a subscription model for continued live customer support and access to our pool chemical online store. We would partner with chemical companies for our supply.

As a team, we submitted the product PRFAQ document, mobile app design, and pitch deck that won the People’s Choice Award receiving the most votes from the general public out of 20 teams!

Outside of work…

I don’t exactly know what I should write here, so I will just talk about things I enjoy.

I love to cook for myself, my partner, and my friends. I watch soccer, hike the Washington mountains, play tennis, box, play video games, and travel. I have been to 14 countries so far.