AI Consulting & Engineering
I am the principal of Upship AI LLC, an AI consulting & engineering practice. I have 20+ years of experience shipping software. Now I help companies turn AI ideas into products that actually ship — from proof of concept through production and beyond.
About / How I Work
Your process or mine — either way works. Some clients want daily standups and sprint planning. Others share a vision and show up for the demo. I adapt to whatever keeps things moving.
I demo often. I estimate realistically. And I deliver on time. In 20+ years of building software, I have never been part of a death march, and I don't plan to start now.
Most of the time it's just me and your codebase. When a project needs more hands, I work with a small group of contractors I trust — people I've built things with before.
I work remotely from Boise, Idaho. I pick up codebases fast and don't need much context handholding — give me a working environment and a clear goal and I'll get oriented.
What I Build
Most engagements fall into one of a few categories:
- LLM integration — adding AI to existing products: structured outputs, retrieval-augmented generation, tool use, evals
- AI-powered product development — greenfield work where AI is the core feature, not a bolt-on
- Full-stack web applications — from architecture to deployment, usually with a modern JS/TS stack
- System architecture & technical leadership — helping teams make good decisions early so they don't pay for them later
- Rapid prototyping & MVP development — getting something real in front of users as fast as responsibly possible
The best projects start with a real problem and a team that wants to ship. If you know what you want to build but haven't figured out where AI fits, that's a fine starting point. If you've got a prototype that needs to become a product, even better.
Track Record
Most recently I spent 18 months building an AI-powered interactive learning platform for an ed-tech client. What started as a proof of concept grew into a product serving around 75,000 users, with multiple corporate deals signed and a new engineering team built to support it.
Before consulting, I co-founded VZBL — a data exploration product where I built the architecture, dashboards, and multi-tenant security from the ground up. Before that: 11 years at Kount (through the Equifax acquisition), 5 years leading teams at SocialChorus/FirstUp, and a stint teaching web development at Boise State University. BS in Computer Science from the same.
I also maintain a couple of open-source packages: opts, a command line argument parser for Node.js (150k+ weekly downloads, 80+ dependents), and treeify-paths, a utility for turning flat file lists into tree structures.
Contact
Have something you want to build? I'd like to hear about it. No forms, no sales funnel — just send me an email and let's talk.