The portfolio up front is what I've built. This is the how and the why — and what I'm into when the laptop closes.
How I actually work
I build with AI, and I'm not shy about it — I vibe-code. But the value isn't the typing, it's the
judgment underneath: knowing the AWS primitives, the architecture trade-offs, the security posture, and
why one design beats another. My real edge is using AI to correct, verify, and strengthen AI —
draft with one pass, critique and adversarially check with another, then harden it against what I actually
know. When something renders fine on one design and breaks on another, I know it's a transformed ancestor
trapping a fixed element — not "the AI made a mistake." The human deciding what's right is the job.
What I keep an eye on
It's not only code. I point the same approach at
operations — auditing cloud bills for waste,
surfacing security and infrastructure issues, keeping a stack lean and owned. Cheap, fast, nothing to hack.
I'd rather own the primitives (S3, CloudFront, CloudFormation, a Linux box I administer) than rent an
abstraction I can't see into.
own-the-stackIaCcloud cost / FinOpssecurity-mindedself-hosting
Off the clock
When I'm not building software, I'm running a smoker in the backyard — chasing brisket bark, dialing in
an offset, and every so often
gloriously destroying a perfectly good steak. That hobby turned into a
build:
Pit, an app that keeps my gear straight and puts an AI "pitmaster advisory
board" — grounded in each unit's real manual — one tap away. I build little apps to learn with, too —
a
meal planner, a
cocktail app, a movie tracker.
I learn by making the thing, not reading about it.
Right now
Sharpening up — working toward the AWS AI Practitioner cert to put a current date on the fundamentals, and
open to a new adventure where I can build real systems and own the outcome.