We build the layer your product is missing.
UpLayer is a small, senior studio. We find where AI genuinely helps an established product, then design and build it with your team, and tell you plainly where it does not belong.
- Founded 2026
- Remote-first
- Strategy, design, development
We're built for the AI era, but we are not impressed by it. Design comes first. The model is just one material among many.
The last few years handed every product team the same assignment: ship something with AI in it. Most of what shipped demoed well, landed in a release note, and moved no number.
We met at ShareTrip, both of us years deep in the same travel booking product. Booking is an unforgiving place to learn: a flow either converts or it doesn't, and nobody argues with the number afterwards. What we kept seeing was not a shortage of engineers. It was a shortage of decisions.
Small on purpose, for now.
A senior team that is honest about its size, and clear about where it is going.
- 2026FoundedUpLayer is new. We would rather you heard it from us than found it out later.
- RemoteRemote-first, for nowThe team works remotely today, async by default, with a few overlap hours to stay in sync.
- 10People by the end of 2026We are hiring senior designers, engineers and an AI project manager to get there.See open roles
- 6+Years shipping product, each founderBoth founders spent six years on real products with real users before starting UpLayer.
Our Principles, Stated Plainly.
Four rules that decide what gets built, and what gets skipped.
Metrics over theater.
Less AI, in the right place, done well. If we can't project a real lift on a number you already track, we don't build it, and we'll tell you which features to skip.
Yours to run.
We build into your product with your engineers in the loop. When we're done, your team understands the layer and can run it without us.
One accountable team.
Strategy, design, and engineering are one team. No account managers, no handoffs, no gap between who planned it and who built it.
Reliability by design.
A feature that hallucinates in front of your users is worse than no feature. Guardrails, fallbacks and human review go in wherever being wrong is expensive, on pipelines your team can audit.
From First Call To Shipped Layer, In Three Steps.
Three steps from first call to a layer running in your product.
Discovery Call
We start with the metric you want to move. On the call we map where AI can plausibly lift it, and where it can't, and if the answer is nowhere, we say so.
Scope and Proposal
The conversation becomes a plan: scope, milestones, timeline, and what we need from your team. Nothing ambiguous survives into the contract.
Build and Handoff
We build into your product with your engineers in the loop, then hand over a layer your team can run without us. No black boxes.
Collaboration & Commitment Define Our Culture
The habits behind the work: one team, start to finish.
01. Judgment is human.
Models draft, people decide. Every recommendation traces back to someone's name, not a prompt.
02. Nothing ships unreviewed.
Senior designers and engineers review every piece before it reaches your users. The people who plan the work stand behind it.
03. Honest on the first call.
If AI can't move your metric, the call ends there. We'd rather lose the project than sell you theater.
The People You Meet Are The People Who Build.
Shahriar P. Shuvo
Founder & CEO @UpLayer
Design and frontend engineer with six years shipping SaaS, developer tools and agentic AI workflows. Builds the layer on top of your stack.
Sohanur R. Joy
Co-Founder & CDO @UpLayer
Product designer with six years on travel booking products. Research led, and the person who turns the strategy into screens.
Want to build the layer with us?
We are growing to a team of 10 in 2026. If you are a senior designer, engineer or project manager who would rather ship one feature that moves a number than ten that demo well, there is a seat for you.