I’m Abhirami Pillai, a decision scientist and writer. I work with data to find patterns and figure out what they mean.
I grew up in Mumbai in a Tamil family. After studying Computer Science, I jumped straight into startups. I liked the messiness of early-stage companies where everyone’s making it up as they go, but I wanted to understand data better.
So I did a Master’s in Business Analytics at UT Dallas. Moving there was a big shift—I’d never lived far from home before. The program was statistics-heavy, and with help from patient mentors, I finally got why stats mattered.
During grad school, I interned at Peacock as a Decision Scientist. I built dashboards and ran a pilot project that made it to production, which felt good. Now I’m at Fractal AI doing similar work.
The startup approach of building quickly and learning from failures has shaped how I work. I apply it to data problems, cooking, and most decisions.
I read, write, and cook when I’m not working. I drink too much coffee and occasionally write poetry.