About

Hey, I'm Rahul. I spent sixteen years at Cisco across Bengaluru, Raleigh, and Gurgaon: solution architecture first, then presales, then product management. Now I'm building InnovRent, a B2B device-leasing business for Indian Enterprises. Also working as a product consultant focused on AI innovations.

A place for the ideas, the working theses, and innovations.

The career

Engineer by education

  • Half-planned to become a mathematician. Then computers pulled me toward engineering at Punjab Engineering College, Chandigarh. Electronics by selection.

Cisco: technical legs, then a pivot to product

  • 2008, Bengaluru. Joined Cisco as a Network Consultant, upgrading large Service Provider networks.
  • 2012, Raleigh. Crossed over into scoping, consulting, and solutioning. A different muscle, but the engineering depth still mattered.
  • Picked up a product instinct in those years: learn to design for what's coming, two or three years ahead.
  • Most of those calls felt premature at the time. Most turned out to be a few years ahead of time.

Back home, into product

  • 2019.Came back to India for a role at Cisco's Services business.
  • Started as a global lead running large-scale deployments across hundreds of sites.
  • Moved into product management, focusing on observability and automation products.
  • This was the chapter where I learned what it actually takes to ship a product through a large organisation.

InnovRent and writing

  • Left Cisco in late 2024 to start InnovRent.
  • Began putting the ideas and innovations on paper too. This site is part of that.
“Why does turning on a light need an app?”

How I think and what I'm doing now

I'm a visual thinker more than a text thinker. Maths and physics were always home turf, and I imagine systems as pictures first, processes second. Which means I'm constantly imagining worlds that don't yet exist, and designs that have never been built.

The questions I keep coming back to: why is this designed this way? What would the perfect design look like, given today's technology? What will drive the change? Where's the maximum friction? Why isn't it smoother? Why is there inequality?

The answer usually lives in how the system was originally designed, with everyone assuming that's the only way it can work. The job is to imagine what the end should look like, and move today's system toward it. The thinking is best when it isn't constrained by existing norms, with a horizon five or ten years out, not two.

Where my mind goes: policy, government systems, how civilisations organise themselves, technology stack design, operational efficiency, fintech, road infrastructure.

Principles I work by

  • Design for zero friction.Why does turning on a light need an app? If most users aren't engineers, the system shouldn't ask them to be.
  • Imagination over knowledge.What you can imagine matters more than what's already known.
  • Connect the disparate. Real progress is usually two systems that finally got joined.
  • Wide gaps are signals. Big inefficiencies hide a process waiting to be redesigned.
  • Imagine perfect, walk it back.Picture the end. Then move today's system toward it.
  • Old isn't optimal.Centuries-old systems have evolved, not been perfected. They're waiting for a new design.
  • Zero behaviour change. A new system should slot in behind existing habits. Otherwise, adoption fails.

(More as I write them down.)

Right now

  • Building InnovRent into a sustainable business.
  • From July 2026, publishing policy proposals and system designs on this site. Not essays. Designs waiting to be implemented.
  • Learning AI deeply.
  • Taking on a few product-and-AI consulting engagements.

Get in touch if any of this lands.

Where I've lived

Panchkula→Ambala→Chandigarh→Bengaluru→Raleigh→Gurgaon

Born in Panchkula. Currently in Gurgaon.

Skills

ProductFounderPresalesArchitectureAutomationAI consultingLarge-scale upgradesCross-functional communicationService Provider & Enterprise networks

Plumbers of the internet, plus a few extra hats.

View CV