I help B2B companies build, ship, and operate cloud software and AI systems, from "we have an idea" through production systems running mission-critical workloads.
My recent AI work includes real-time analysis of emergency call audio for a market leader in emergency response technology, flagging what dispatchers and responders need to know, Tinkerbell's research agent built on MCP servers and measured with evals and benchmarks, and agent pipelines with skills and subagents that keep GPU Poet's data current.
I am a hands-on engineering leader and fractional CTO. I architect the system and write the production code, and I can also run the org, mentor managers and engineers, and present to the board. More at Hire a Fractional CTO.
I've shipped features used by millions at Amazon, Smartsheet, Planview, Glide and Vouched.
- Fernfiles: a file store that versions every change so you cannot lose anything, and keeps your notes as plain markdown with no lock-in.
- Ramblefeed: personal notes and bookmarks, tagged and searchable, kept private or published as a public feed.
- GPU Poet: a free price and performance comparison that finds you the best GPU for your money.
- Tinkerbell: privacy-focused web search and content extraction for AI agents, as an MCP server and a REST API.
- lessmsi: views and extracts the contents of a Windows Installer (.msi) file. At 1,760 stars, my most widely used open source project.
- @activescott/auth: a deliberately small, framework-agnostic auth library with magic links, one-time codes, and passkeys, and no third-party identity provider.
- typescript-openai-realtime-api: a TypeScript client and working browser example for the OpenAI Realtime API over WebRTC, with the conversation state and audio streams managed for you.
I live near Seattle. I like spending time with family and being outside, and I love to build things out of code, especially with others.
Book time with me, or read more at Hire a Fractional CTO.