Full Stack & AI Engineer building secure, scalable products
I've spent the last 8 years building software that has to work when real people are using it, not demos or prototypes, but products carrying live traffic.
Most of my career has been full stack: Node.js, Java, Python on the backend, React and Next.js on the front, SQL and NoSQL underneath, and Spring Boot where the domain calls for it. What I enjoy most is the layer above the code, deciding whether a system should be a monolith or a set of microservices, where the boundaries belong, and what will still hold together when traffic multiplies. Getting that wrong is expensive to undo, so I take the decision seriously.
More recently my work has centred on AI products. I've built AI voice agents with real-time speech pipelines, interactive AI avatars, and EdTech platforms including Quiklearn and iPal Academy. These projects taught me something conventional web work doesn't. AI systems fail in unfamiliar ways, and designing for graceful degradation matters as much as designing for the happy path.
Security runs through all of it. I treat web application security as part of building rather than something bolted on before launch. It's far cheaper to design a system that resists attack than to patch one that didn't.
How I work: I ask questions early, I tell you when I think an approach will cause problems later, and I'd rather flag a risk in week one than apologise for it in month three. I communicate in plain language, not jargon, and I keep you informed without needing to be chased.
If you're building something that has to scale, has to be secure, or has to integrate AI in a way that holds up in production, I'd be glad to talk it through.
Work Terms
Rate: $15/hour. Fixed-price quotes available once scope is defined, and I usually prefer these for well specified projects since it gives you cost certainty.
Availability: 40 hours per week, full-time capacity. Timezone is not a barrier. I overlap with US, EU, and APAC business hours as your project needs, including standups and calls at your convenience.
How I run a project: I start with a short scoping call to understand what you're building and why. For anything beyond a few days of work, I break delivery into milestones with clear acceptance criteria, so you can see progress and approve as we go rather than waiting until the end.
Communication: Daily updates on active work, reachable through Guru messaging, email, or your preferred channel. I respond within 4 hours on working days.
Payment: Milestone-based through Guru SafePay for fixed-price work, weekly invoicing for hourly. First milestone is typically kept small so we can both check the working relationship fits before committing further.
What I need from you: A point of contact who can answer product questions and sign off on milestones. Projects slow down most often when decisions get stuck, not when code does