Portland, Oregon
Thirty years of building software that outlasts the hype around it.
I have been building for the web for 30 years, and I run a consultancy in Portland. I write about pragmatic AI adoption, the architecture decisions that quietly determine a product's fate, and what it actually takes to grow engineers.
“AI is changing how we build software. It is not changing the fundamentals of what makes software successful.”
Writing
Notes from the middle of it
- 3 min read
3 Topics About AI on the Founder Wisdom Podcast
I recently had the opportunity to join the Founder Wisdom podcast to talk about artificial intelligence, software development, and where both are headed over the next several years.
- AI
- Podcast
- Development
- 5 min read
AI Doesn’t Replace Great Technology Partners. It Changes What Great Partners Do.
AI made building software faster without making building the right software any easier. What that shift actually demands from a technology partner, and what it demands from the client.
- AI
- Partnership
- 7 min read
AI Is Making Software Easier to Start, But Not Easier to Get Right
I recently joined Ascend Integration Partners to talk about how AI is changing software development, what we are building with Autotix.io, and how we are thinking about the future of Hello World.
- AI
- Architecture
- Podcast
The work
What people hire me for
Fractional technical leadership
Senior engineering judgment for companies that need a CTO's decisions without a CTO's headcount. Architecture reviews, build-versus-buy calls, hiring, and the unglamorous work of paying down debt before it compounds into a rewrite.
AI strategy that survives contact
Roadmaps, technical audits, and governance for teams adopting AI. Less demo, more of what holds up in production: evaluation, security posture, review practices, and the org changes nobody budgets for until they are already late.
Modernizing what you already have
Most companies do not need a rewrite. They need someone who can read a decade-old codebase without flinching, find the three structural changes that unlock the next three years, and sequence them so every increment ships.
Most of this runs through Hello World, the consultancy I founded in 2015, where a team handles the build. When an engagement is mostly judgment rather than delivery, it is usually just me.
Track record
Where I’ve put the hours
Hello World
Founder & CEO · 2015 – present
Agencies
A decade, before it was called digital
Government & corporate
A decade, at a very different tempo
Mentorship Saturdays
Founder · 2014 – present
Bridges to Change
Board Chair · 2022 – 2024
- The longer version
Off the clock
Not everything is about software
Coaching
Years on the sideline of youth basketball courts, which taught me more about running a team than any management book did. You cannot fake a season, and the scoreboard reports on your coaching every week whether you asked it to or not.
Mentoring
Mentorship Saturdays started in 2014 and never really stopped. Helping people break into tech is the part of this career I would keep if I had to give up the rest, and it is the best signal I have about what hiring in this industry actually looks like right now.
Portland
Rain, coffee, a tech community that punches well above the city's weight, and a basketball team that keeps me humble. I have spent most of my career here on purpose, and it shaped how I think about building things to last.
Get in touch
Got a hard problem, a half-formed idea, or a codebase nobody wants to open?
I answer my own email, usually within a day. Tell me what you’re working on, what is stuck, or just say hello.