Independent AI systems studio · San Diego
There’s probably a system hiding in it.
I build custom tools, workflows, and internal systems—using AI where it earns its place and ordinary software engineering everywhere else. You get back something that handles the repetitive part, shows its work, and leaves the decisions to a person.
Most people arrive with one of these three.
01 / WHAT I BUILD
These are deliberately small projects with an end date. Your team keeps its roadmap. I take ownership of the awkward thing sitting between “we should” and “it works.”
For manual work that should not be manual
I learn a repetitive, judgment-heavy process by doing it with you once—then turn those steps into a focused tool or reusable AI workflow.
Explore this serviceFor systems that need to talk to each other
I connect your AI feature to the data and software it needs to do its job—without giving it the keys to everything.
For a demo that never made it into real use
The demo proved the idea. I find what is stopping it from being used for real, fix the parts that keep breaking, and leave your team something it can run without me.
Explore this service02 / SELECTED WORK
Every project begins with work someone is already doing. The goal is to preserve the judgment, remove the repetition, and leave behind something dependable.
View all case studiesPUBLIC RELATIONS / RESEARCH OPERATIONS
We turned hours of research, source checking, contact collection, and spreadsheet work into one guided command—with the professional still making the calls that matter.
CREATIVE PRODUCTION / A PERSON STILL DECIDES
Style rules, character references, scene generation, animation, and finishing became one reusable pipeline—with the person still choosing what is worth publishing.
MOTION GRAPHICS / TIMING IS THE HARD PART
Script, narration, timing data, motion components, and rendering became one workflow that refuses to guess where a scene belongs.
03 / THE APPROACH
One conversation about what is slow, stuck, expensive, or being babysat by a person.
I define the smallest version that is genuinely worth having, what it trades away, and exactly what “done” means.
Short feedback loops, visible progress, and real software—not a month of meetings about software.
Clean handoff, clear documentation, and no mysterious black box that requires me forever.
04 / WHAT YOU END UP WITH
You should know what lands in your hands at the end before anything gets built. This is the list, every time.
Running on your real inputs, not a demo file. If it has not survived the actual work, it is not finished.
Written so another engineer could pick it up. Where it lives and who can reach it is agreed in writing before we start.
I show the people who will actually run it how it works, using their own work as the example—not a rehearsed one.
What it does not do, where it stops and asks for a person, and the cases we deliberately left out.
Everything fails eventually. You get the failure modes, who is responsible for checking the output, and what to do when it goes wrong—agreed before it happens.
The outside services it needs to keep running. Those bill you directly and can change their terms without asking either of us, so you should know which ones you are standing on.
05 / THE FIT
06 / THE PART NOBODY SAYS OUT LOUD
Nobody raises these on a first call. They are the reason projects never start, so let’s do them now.
If your worry is not on this list, put it in the first email. I would rather answer it than have it quietly end the conversation.
07 / WHO YOU’RE HIRING
I’m Adam Thayer, a Staff Software Engineer in San Diego. Before software, I worked in Coast Guard aviation, search and rescue, avionics, auto repair, and a handful of jobs where the answer could not just sound good—it had to work.
That is still how I approach technology: understand the real problem, respect the consequences, and build the simplest durable thing that solves it.
Taking on select projects
One sentence, or just email me. Either way, tell me what is happening now and what you want to happen instead.