C M Nafi
Solutions Engineer · Finance & Data Infrastructure
I'm a solutions engineer at Dasseti, working at the intersection of institutional capital and the data infrastructure that moves it. I grew up in Bangladesh, left home at sixteen on a full scholarship to a United World College in China, and landed in a town of eight thousand in Iowa for university. I've since worked with BlackRock, Mayo Clinic, and Skybridge Associates — three very different institutions that share a single truth: the answer is almost always in the data, and the edge is almost always in how quickly you can get to it. I build tools, I ship writing, and I try to keep the feedback loop short.
Bangladesh → China → Iowa → Tampa
I grew up in Dinajpur, Bangladesh, in a household that treated reading as the default answer to boredom. At sixteen I left on a full scholarship to UWC Changshu (China), moving to a country where I didn't speak the language and learning most of what I know about self-reliance in the space of two years.
University took me to Luther College in Decorah, Iowa — a town of eight thousand people where winter teaches you patience and a small campus teaches you that depth beats breadth if you let it. I majored in Data Science and minored in Computer Science, and graduated 2022.
I now live in Tampa, Florida, which is where the F1, the cricket, and the work all happen to sit.
What the route gave me: the instinct to read a system top-down and bottom-up at the same time, comfort with being the newest person in the room, and a bias for building the tool I wish existed instead of complaining about the one that doesn't.
Solutions Engineer
Analyst - Data and AI
The world's largest asset manager. The first place I learned that a trillion dollars is a spreadsheet problem, a risk problem, and a storytelling problem all at once.
- Analytics team, working on risk reporting and fund performance metrics.
- Built dashboards mapping capital flow analytics to strategy performance.
- Presented findings to senior stakeholders at the end of the program.
Data Scientist
A multi-strategy alternative investment firm. Exposure to fund-of-funds construction, manager selection, and the operational side of allocating capital at institutional scale.
- Supported the manager-selection team with quantitative screening models across 200+ hedge fund profiles.
- Built internal dashboards tracking exposure by strategy, geography, and liquidity profile.
- Contributed to investment memos for alternative mandates.
AI Intern
A healthcare institution where the data engineering is operating at a scale most fintechs never see. The lesson was that reliability beats cleverness, and that messy real-world data is the job, not an obstacle to the job.
- Engineered ETL pipelines against clinical data sets serving research teams.
- Owned and automated reporting pipelines handling high-velocity data.
- Partnered with clinical stakeholders to translate ambiguous questions into measurable outputs.
Day job is Dasseti. Outside that, I'm building a set of public finance data tools at cmnafi.com/garage — most notably the ADV Screener, a 13F Data Finder, and a manager intelligence dashboard that ties entity resolution, regulatory filings, and narrative summarization together. They're works in progress on purpose.
I also write one or two Field Notes a week on cmnafi.com/field-notes covering the corners of institutional finance, venture capital, and market structure that I find most worth explaining. The writing and the tools feed each other — every post surfaces something worth turning into a tool, and every tool surfaces something worth writing about.
Languages & frameworks
TypeScript · Python · SQL · Astro · Next.js · React · MDX
Data & infra
PostgreSQL · pgvector · Supabase · Pandas · REST/GraphQL APIs · SEC EDGAR
AI & tooling
OpenAI / Anthropic APIs · Claude Code + gstack · embeddings and hybrid search · agent workflows
Domains
Institutional asset management · hedge funds & alternatives · regulatory data (Form ADV, 13F) · due-diligence workflows · capital markets · sports finance and private equity.
How I work
Bias to ship · one pager before a system · short feedback loops · writing is thinking · small tools over big platforms · tests the moment a bug appears, not before.
- Luther College, Decorah, Iowa · B.A. in Data Science, Computer Science minor, 2022.
- UWC Changshu, China · IB Diploma. Full merit scholarship.
Key Certifications
- IBM: Introduction to Data Engineering
- Google: Data Analytics Professional Certificate
- DeepLearning.AI: Neural Networks and Deep Learning
- Salesforce: Einstein Analytics
I play competitive cricket on the weekends — currently turning out for Tampa Bengals in the Tampa league. Five-wicket hauls and narrow chases show up on the blog with surprising regularity.
I follow Formula 1 the way some people follow theology — I can tell you which team's pit wall is worth listening to on radio and which corner at Suzuka decides a season. I read a book a month, mostly non-fiction, and occasionally a novel that makes me feel underprepared.
If we ever talk, there's a non-trivial chance it drifts into one of these.
- ✉️ Email — nafi@cmnafi.com · replies within two business days.
- 💼 LinkedIn — linkedin.com/in/cm-nafi
- 💻 GitHub — github.com/CMNafi
- 📅 20-minute intro call — Book Meeting
I'm most useful in conversations about: institutional finance data infrastructure, tools for allocators and due-diligence teams, solutions engineering at finance-adjacent SaaS, and technical writing for finance audiences.
I'm probably not your person for: sell-side equity research roles, pure quant trading seats, or anything that requires me to stop building things to run a long sales cycle.