Independent Software Engineer
One engineer.
Embedded in your business.
Accountable for the outcome.
A forward-deployed engineer works inside a customer's real operation and owns the solution end to end, from discovery to production rollout. I spent my career working that way. Now I've gone independent, with an agentic AI workflow that lets one senior engineer deliver what used to take a team.
20+
Years building systems
1
Accountable engineer
0
Decks instead of software
The Forward-Deployed Model
The best engineers don't advise from a distance. They embed.
Palantir built a billion-dollar business on a simple idea: instead of building one capability for many customers, put an engineer inside one customer's operation and enable many capabilities for them. They called it forward-deployed engineering, a term borrowed from the military, for forces stationed at the point of action rather than back at base.
The defining trait isn't location. It's ownership. A forward-deployed engineer is accountable for whether the system actually works and gets adopted, not for shipping a specification and walking away. That model now runs at OpenAI and Anthropic for the same reason it worked at Palantir: enterprise problems don't yield to advice. They yield to someone who builds.
I spent my career working this way, and went independent so growing companies could get the same commitment without hiring an engineering department.
01
Discovery, on the ground
I start where your business actually runs: your people, your data, your workarounds. Not a requirements document written in a conference room, the real workflow.
02
Build, in your systems
I write the code, wire the integrations, and ship into your production environment. The system has to survive your busiest day, not a demo.
03
Rollout, with your team
Go-live isn't a handoff. I stay through adoption, training, and the first hard weeks, until the system is simply how the work gets done.
04
Ownership, after launch
Consultants leave decks. I leave running software, and I stay accountable for it. When it needs to change, you call the person who built it.
The Agentic Advantage
One engineer, working like a team.
I run a deeply agentic development workflow: AI agents built into every stage of how I plan, write, test, and ship software. This isn't a shortcut around engineering, it's a multiplier on it. The judgment is mine. The throughput is something a single consultant couldn't offer two years ago.
Team-scale output
Work that used to wait on a multi-person engineering team moves at the pace of a single, senior decision-maker.
Senior judgment on every line
AI agents handle volume. A 20-year engineer makes every architectural call, reviews every change, and owns the result.
Faster time to production
Discovery to working software in weeks, not quarters, without cutting the corners that matter.
What this means for you: the responsiveness of one accountable person, the delivery capacity of a small team, and a cost structure that actually makes sense for a growing business.
What I Build
More than websites. Systems that run the business.
Web applications are one tool in the box. Most of the value I deliver is deeper in the operation: the systems, integrations, and automation that determine whether the business scales or stalls.
Internal business systems
The operational backbone your team runs on: quoting, scheduling, order management, approvals, reporting. Built around how your business actually works, not how off-the-shelf software thinks it should.
Integrations & data flow
Your accounting system, your CRM, your spreadsheets, your vendor portals, connected. Data moves once, accurately, instead of being re-keyed by hand.
Modernization & rescue
Aging systems that still run the business, carefully rebuilt or extended without stopping operations. Including projects a previous vendor left half-done.
Automation & AI-assisted operations
Repetitive workflows turned into reliable systems, with AI applied where it genuinely helps: document processing, drafting, triage, decision support.
Customer-facing software
Portals, tools, and experiences your customers touch, held to the same production standard as the systems behind them.
Fractional technical leadership
Architecture decisions, vendor evaluation, technical due diligence, and a roadmap, for companies that need senior engineering judgment without a full-time hire.
Who I Help
Too big for spreadsheets. Too lean for an engineering department.
The companies I work with have outgrown manual processes but aren't staffed to build the systems they need. That's the gap I fill: senior engineering capability, embedded in your business, without the overhead of building a team.
- Revenue between $10M and $100M, and growing faster than your systems can handle
- Critical work running on spreadsheets, email threads, and tribal knowledge
- Software needs that are real, but don't justify hiring a full engineering team
- A technology decision coming that you want senior judgment on, not a sales pitch
- A vendor-built system that nobody truly owns, and everybody works around
Working Together
Ownership is the whole point.
Most consulting ends with a recommendation. Mine ends with a running system, and a person who stays accountable for it. A few principles every engagement runs on:
You talk to the person who builds
No account managers, no handoffs, no telephone game. The person in the discovery meeting is the person writing the code and answering for it in production.
Working software over status reports
You'll see real progress early and often, running in your environment. Progress you can click, not slides about progress.
Plain language, always
You don't need to become technical to make good technology decisions. I explain trade-offs in business terms and tell you when the simple option is the right one.
Your systems stay yours
Everything is built in your accounts, documented, and maintainable. No lock-in, no hostage code. If we part ways, you keep everything, and it keeps working.
Why Work With Me
Experience you can verify. Ownership you can hold onto.
25 years in the work
From early .NET systems to modern cloud and AI-assisted delivery, I've built through four technology eras and stayed current through each one. What doesn't change: systems have to work in production, for real people, every day.
One accountable person
When you hire a firm, your project gets whoever is available. When you work with me, you get me: the same person in the first meeting, in the codebase, and on the phone when something needs attention.
Business first, technology second
I've sat on the business side of the table often enough to know that the elegant technical answer is sometimes the wrong one. I optimize for your operation, your timeline, and your budget, not my résumé.
Modern leverage, honest pricing
My agentic workflow means I deliver faster than a traditional consultant without billing you for a team's overhead. You get current-practice engineering at independent-consultant economics.
Contact
Let's talk about the system your business is missing.
A first conversation costs nothing and commits you to nothing. We'll look at where your operation is straining, and I'll tell you honestly whether I'm the right person to fix it.