AI Engineer & Consultant
I help teams integrate AI into products that actually work in production.
I'm a software engineer with 10+ years of experience — specializing in AI integration, LLM-powered features, and RAG systems. I take on a small number of engagements at a time and work directly with your team — no account managers, no handoffs.
I'm Mike — a software engineer specializing in AI integration. I help teams connect LLMs, RAG pipelines, and AI-powered workflows to real products. I don't train models; I make them work reliably inside your systems.
Most AI projects stall between prototype and production. The demo works — then the real questions start: How do we handle user permissions? What happens when retrieval quality drifts? How do we know the system is working at 2am?
I help answer those questions before they become incidents. My focus is on the work that actually determines whether an AI feature ships: data pipelines, access controls, observability, and structured delivery.
Services
AI consulting services
AI Feature Development
You want to add AI to your product — a copilot, a workflow automation, a smart assistant. I design the integration, connect it to your existing systems and APIs, and build it to production standards.
What you get
A working feature your team can maintain, with clear documentation and a rollout plan.
RAG and Knowledge Systems
You need AI that searches, summarizes, or answers questions from your own data. I build the retrieval pipeline using your existing data sources, evaluate quality, and make sure it holds up as data changes.
What you get
A reliable retrieval system with quality benchmarks and alerting — not just a pipeline that works on day one.
Production Readiness and Architecture Review
Your AI project is running but something feels fragile. I review what you have, identify the real risks, and give you a concrete plan to address them.
What you get
A written assessment with prioritized recommendations — not a sales pitch for more work.
Delivery Rescue
You're weeks into a build and it's not going well. Scope has crept, stakeholder confidence is down, or the architecture took a wrong turn.
What you get
An honest assessment of what's salvageable, a reset plan, and hands-on help to execute it.
Ongoing Technical Advisor
You don't need full-time help, but you want a senior engineer available to review decisions, unblock the team, and catch problems before they compound.
What you get
A set number of hours per month, direct access, and fast turnaround on questions.
Typical engagements run 4–12 weeks. Async-first by default. Not sure which fits? Let's talk →
Where I tend to show up
Why AI projects fail before production
Stalled before launch
Access controls, audit trails, and observability weren't designed in. Security review becomes a months-long blocker.
Retrieval quality drifting
Search pipelines degrade as source data shifts. Without evaluation, nobody notices until users start complaining.
No signal when things break
No distributed traces, no cost dashboards, no runbooks. On-call engineers have nothing to act on.
How I work
Simple, direct, and documented.
I keep engagements straightforward. Here's what working together actually looks like.
Architecture before code
Before anything is built, I document what we're building, how it will work, and where the risks are. You sign off before the first sprint.
Async by default
I don't require daily standups. I send structured updates twice a week — what's done, what's next, what needs a decision.
Incremental delivery
Measurable checkpoints across data, runtime, and UX mean problems surface early, not the week before launch.
I do the work
I don't take on more than two engagements at a time and I don't hand off to junior engineers. When I'm working with you, I'm focused on your project.
Documented handoffs
Every engagement ends with working software, documentation, and a handoff your team can actually use. No black boxes.
Honest scope
If I can solve it faster, I do. I don't pad scope to extend an engagement.
Ready to talk?
If you're dealing with a specific problem — or you're not sure yet whether what you're building is going to hold up — I'm happy to spend 30 minutes on a call to find out.
No sales process. Just a conversation.