Founders & CTOs
Your roadmap is blocked by technical uncertainty, integration risk, or a vendor-driven architecture that doesn’t match reality. You need a clear, independent path forward.
Consulting for systems that cannot quietly fail
You don’t need more AI hype.
You need your system to work.
I help teams who are on the hook for fragile, complex systems – AI, networking, data, radios – find the shortest path to something that actually works in the field.
I am a world-class systems architect with decades of deep experience building software and infrastructure that cannot quietly fail. I’ve shipped real-time flight simulators for Boeing, designed and delivered cross-platform enterprise systems at Microsoft, built large-scale distributed agents used on hundreds of thousands of servers, and created FrogNet — a sovereign, offline-first network and AI platform for real-world environments. My specialty is diagnosing complex, fragile architectures and turning them into systems that actually work, in the field, under real constraints.
Who this is for
You’re responsible for something important, and it feels more fragile than it should.
I’m a good fit when you’re on the hook for a system that matters – to customers, to operations, or to public safety – and you know the current path is too brittle, too slow to evolve, or simply not trustworthy.
Engineering leaders
You own a platform, product, or internal system that’s grown complicated. You need to know what to keep, what to rebuild, and where to simplify without breaking everything.
Operators & infrastructure owners
You run systems in the physical world – plants, networks, sensors, radios – and you need designs that keep working when WAN is broken, power is flaky, or conditions are ugly.
Typical problems
If any of this sounds familiar, you probably need me.
- “We tried to bolt AI on top of our system, and now nobody fully understands how it works or fails.”
- “Our architecture looks fine in diagrams, but it falls apart in the field where radios and power are messy.”
- “We were promised an MVP; we got a fragile science project and a stack of excuses.”
- “We need offline or low-bandwidth AI, but everything assumes a perfect cloud connection.”
- “We can’t tell whether to keep investing in this platform or cut our losses and simplify.”
What I actually do
Concrete, time-bounded services – not vague advisory work.
AI & systems diagnostic
A focused review of your architecture, code, data flows, and failure modes. You get an honest, written assessment: what’s solid, what’s brittle, and what to do next.
- Architecture and dependency map
- Key risks and single points of failure
- Prioritized action plan in plain language
Offline-first & edge AI design
Architect AI systems that keep working with poor or no WAN: local models, embeddings, vector DBs, and synchronization designed for the real world, not just cloud diagrams.
- Local inference and caching strategy
- Resilient sync and conflict patterns
- Degraded-mode behaviors that are actually safe
Resilient networking & radio architectures
Designs that span Ethernet, Wi-Fi, LoRa, HF/VHF/UHF, LTE, SAT, and awkward topologies – assuming links are lossy, intermittent, and unfair.
- Practical, testable topologies
- Failover and fallback that don’t surprise operators
- Instrumentation that tells you when things are going wrong
MVP rescue & technical diligence
Turn a vague or failing project into a bounded, realistic plan – or a clean decision to stop. Useful for both internal efforts and vendor-delivered systems.
- Gap analysis vs. your actual goals
- Scenarios for salvage vs. rewrite
- Independent, written recommendations for leadership
How an engagement works
Short, intense, and designed to get you unstuck quickly.
My goal is to get you from uncertainty to clarity as fast as possible – with a concrete plan and no fluff.
- Free 1-hour diagnostic call. We talk through your system, constraints, and goals. I’ll tell you directly if I can help. No deliverables, no obligation.
- Scoped Phase 1. If we continue, we define a focused phase (often 1–2 weeks) with clear acceptance criteria and tangible outputs – architecture, plan, or fixes.
- Pricing & terms. Standard rate: $300/hour. Each phase: 50% upfront (non-refundable) and 50% on completion of agreed criteria.
- Delivery. You receive written artifacts, diagrams, and working sessions with your team so the plan is understood and executable.
Why people bring me in
Systems engineer first. AI person second. Always on your side.
I’ve spent my career shipping systems that had to work: from Boeing flight simulators and kernel/network code to large-scale enterprise tools and open source platforms. FrogNet is the latest expression of that work.
- Inventor of FrogNet and BullFrog LDC – a sovereign, offline-first networking and AI fabric.
- Built and led Microsoft’s Open Source Technology Center team that shipped PowerShell for Linux and management agents running on hundreds of thousands of servers worldwide.
- Architect and implementer across games, datacenter management, streaming, and environmental systems.
- Comfortable at every layer: kernel, network, distributed systems, web, and AI.
Next step
If this sounds like your world, let’s talk.
Send a short note about your system, what’s going wrong, and what “good” would look like. I’ll respond personally, and if it makes sense we’ll schedule your free diagnostic hour.