# Rida Al Barazi | Founder and principal of Amidship > Canonical URL: https://amidship.com/about/rida/ > Language: en-CA - [Home](https://amidship.com/) - About Rida Rida Al Barazi · Founder and principal # A builder across product, architecture, and implementation. Rida is a software architect, founder, and product builder with more than two decades of experience turning difficult operating problems into software people can use and teams can maintain. He works across the boundaries that usually become handoffs: business context, product behaviour, architecture, implementation, and delivery. [Read Rida’s writing (opens in a new tab)](https://rida.me/blog/)[View GitHub (opens in a new tab)](https://github.com/rbarazi) ![Rida Al Barazi, founder and principal of Amidship](https://amidship.com/assets/brand/07-rida-portrait-centerline-approved.png) Current focus ## AI systems should still behave like software. Rida’s current work focuses on AI-enabled systems where state, permissions, tools, evaluation, failure recovery, and human control remain explicit in the application. Through Amidship and the products it builds — Agentify, PDFSight, and BranchBox — he tests those ideas in working software rather than separating strategy from implementation. On Amidship engagements ## Rida stays directly involved in the decisions that matter. Rida leads discovery, product and architecture decisions, implementation direction, and final review. Specialists join only when the problem benefits from their expertise, with named responsibilities and clear review paths. Decisions, code, architecture notes, risks, and handover material are kept current so the client receives a transferable system — not a dependency on one person’s memory. [See how we work together](https://amidship.com/work-with-us/) Experience ## Founder range. Enterprise depth. Hands-on delivery. Rida’s experience spans founding and operating software companies, leading product and engineering work, and navigating the constraints of large enterprise systems. - ### Salesforce Software architecture · Enterprise product systems At Salesforce, Rida works across Trailhead product and platform architecture, connecting product decisions, data, integration, experimentation, and delivery across multidisciplinary teams. - ### Amidship Founder and principal · Since 2015 Rida founded Amidship to keep product judgment, architecture, and implementation connected. The company has built custom software, operated service-business software, and now develops owned products and open engineering work alongside client delivery. - ### Wave Payroll product, engineering, and general management At Wave, Rida led payroll product and engineering work and held general-management responsibility in a regulated, government-connected domain. - ### Founder-led product work Startups · Consulting · Product delivery Earlier, Rida co-founded a software studio and helped startups and established organizations move from product questions to working systems. Writing and talks ## See how Rida approaches the work. Rida’s current writing and 2026 talks are available in full, with live slides, source repositories, and official conference pages. ![First slide of Agentic Coding: Rebuilding ConFoo’s Website with AI Agents, presented by Rida Al Barazi at ConFoo 2026.](https://amidship.com/assets/evidence/rida/talks/agentic-coding-confoo-2026.webp) ConFoo 2026 · Montréal ### Agentic Coding: Building Features with AI Teammates A live case study in rebuilding ConFoo’s website with parallel coding agents, structured specifications, isolated branches, and automated cross-model review. [View slides (opens in a new tab)](https://rbarazi.github.io/confoo-2026-agentic-coding-building-features-with-ai-teammates/)[Inspect source (opens in a new tab)](https://github.com/rbarazi/confoo-2026-agentic-coding-building-features-with-ai-teammates)[Official conference page (opens in a new tab)](https://confoo.ca/en/2026/session/agentic-coding-building-features-with-ai-teammates) ![First slide of Safe Agentic Coding: Environment Engineering for Reliable AI Teammates, presented by Rida Al Barazi at ConFoo 2026.](https://amidship.com/assets/evidence/rida/talks/safe-agentic-coding-confoo-2026.webp) ConFoo 2026 · Montréal ### Safe Agentic Dev Environments A practical framework for giving coding agents enough access to test and debug their work while keeping environments, credentials, and verification paths bounded. [View slides (opens in a new tab)](https://rbarazi.github.io/confoo-2026-safe-agentic-dev-environments/)[Inspect source (opens in a new tab)](https://github.com/rbarazi/confoo-2026-safe-agentic-dev-environments)[Official conference page (opens in a new tab)](https://confoo.ca/en/2026/session/safe-agentic-dev-environments) ### Writing - [Why I finally tried OpenClaw (and how I’m making it safe) (opens in a new tab)](https://rida.me/blog/why-i-finally-tried-openclaw/) - [MCP’s Auth Problem (opens in a new tab)](https://rida.me/blog/mcp-auth-problem/) - [YOLO Mode Only Works When YOLO Can’t Hurt You (opens in a new tab)](https://rida.me/blog/yolo-mode/) [See all writing and talks (opens in a new tab)](https://rida.me/) Publishing and community ## Teaching and sharing have long been part of the work. Rida co-authored Beginning Rails 6, published by Apress in 2020, and helped co-found the Toronto Ruby Brigade. Those earlier contributions are part of a longer record. His current writing and 2026 talks show how he approaches software today. [View Beginning Rails 6 (opens in a new tab)](https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-4842-5716-6)[View the talk archive (opens in a new tab)](https://rida.me/talks/) Work with Amidship ## Bring Rida the problem before the solution is obvious. Amidship is most useful when product, architecture, and implementation need to stay connected — and the next important decision still needs to be made. [Work with us](https://amidship.com/work-with-us/)