Good evening. Palm Desert, CA.
The engineering department for
owner-led businesses
I was the entire engineering department at NBC Palm Springs: the website, the apps, the CMS, the streaming, 5M+ pageviews a year, built and run by one person. Now I do the same thing for businesses that are too big for a web designer and too small to hire a full-time engineer. Custom web and mobile apps, customer and member portals, rebuilds of the systems you've outgrown, and AI woven into the work you already do.
Based in the Coachella Valley. Working with local businesses in person, and remote clients across the US and abroad.
Free. In person in the Coachella Valley, on a call anywhere.
Start with a free 30-minute audit
I'll spend 30 minutes looking at whatever is slowing your business down. The booking flow that still sends people to a PDF. The four vendor logins your members juggle. The dispatch schedule that lives in a text thread. You get a one-page memo on what I'd fix first and what it would take. No pitch deck, no obligation.
I reply within one business day
Case studies
Built and run by one engineer
A TV station's entire digital stack. Two apps in the App Store for local businesses. A multi-tenant platform other businesses put their name on. Every one of these was scoped, built, and shipped end to end by one person.
NBC Palm Springs
A TV station's entire digital stack, built by one engineer
Click to see the full case study →
Key Results
The Challenge
NBC Palm Springs had a legacy website that couldn't keep up with the newsroom, no mobile apps, no live streaming of its own, and no engineering team. Every change went through an outside vendor.
Our Solution
As the station's sole engineer, I built the whole thing from scratch: a Next.js news site, a custom CMS built around how the newsroom actually works, React Native apps for iOS and Android, and a media server handling camera ingest, transcoding, and live streaming. Then I ran it. 5M+ pageviews a year on infrastructure one person could operate.
Busco
Event ticketing app, iOS and Android
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Key Results
The Challenge
A client needed a real product in the Eventbrite and Partiful space: create an event, promote it, sell tickets, check people in. Not a prototype. Something people would pay through on their phones.
Our Solution
Built and shipped a React Native app for iOS and Android with a Node backend: event creation and promotion, ticketing and payments, attendee management. I maintain and extend it today, which is what fractional engineering looks like in practice.
Dance Dimensions Studios
Parent portal and notifications app for a two-location dance studio
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Key Results
The Challenge
A Palm Desert and La Quinta dance studio was pushing updates to hundreds of families through group texts, email blasts, and Facebook. Parents missed schedule changes, and the front desk spent hours re-answering the same questions. Their registration system (Jackrabbit) couldn't do any of it, and replacing it wasn't on the table.
Our Solution
Built an iOS app for parents and a web admin for the owner and teachers, as a layer on top of Jackrabbit rather than a replacement. Rosters sync from enrollment exports every day, so parents sign in and see their dancers, classes, and updates with zero setup. Class-scoped push notifications, teacher-managed content, and Supabase with row-level security underneath. Designed to run on near-free infrastructure.
Loopden
White-label notification platform for studios, teams, and youth programs
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Key Results
The Challenge
Dance studios, sports teams, and youth organizations all have the same problem: one-way announcements to parents scattered across group texts, email blasts, and Facebook. They needed something they could put their own name on.
Our Solution
Built a multi-tenant, white-label notification platform on Supabase with row-level security, so every organization's data stays its own. Next.js marketing site, tiered pricing, and a unit economics model to go with it. Solo-built, front to back.
LegalAI
Static HTML Prototype → Multi-Tenant AI Legal SaaS
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Key Results
The Challenge
A legal-tech founder had a single static HTML file demonstrating a suite of AI-powered legal tools. The concept worked, the demo wowed investors — but the file couldn't authenticate users, isolate client data, scale model calls, or be safely hosted anywhere a paying customer could touch it.
Our Solution
Rebuilt the prototype as a fully hosted multi-tenant web application: secure tenant isolation, role-based access, a hardened AI integration layer with guardrails and usage tracking, billing-ready architecture, and production-grade infrastructure designed to scale from first paying customer to enterprise rollout. (Further details withheld at the client's request.)
Morrow
Employee Benefits Platform
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Key Results
The Challenge
Morrow needed to scale their employee financial information platform rapidly, adding complex API integrations and frontend features to support growing enterprise clients.
Our Solution
Joined a medium-sized engineering team to build core API endpoints with GraphQL and Prisma, develop responsive React frontend features, and integrate with third-party financial data providers on AWS infrastructure.
Briefcatch
AI Legal Writing Assistant
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Key Results
The Challenge
Legal professionals needed an AI-powered tool embedded directly in Microsoft Word to improve their writing — catching issues traditional grammar tools miss, like legalese, passive voice, and citation formatting.
Our Solution
Developed a Microsoft Word Add-in with a React frontend and Python backend, integrating AI models for legal-specific writing analysis. Built robust document parsing, real-time suggestions, and a seamless in-editor experience.
MyGovTools
Government Aggregation Platform
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Key Results
The Challenge
Government officials and engaged citizens had no single place to track local events, news, and government activity across fragmented municipal websites and sources.
Our Solution
Created an aggregation platform with advanced web scraping (Puppeteer), automated email notifications, and a clean dashboard for tracking government activity. Built with Next.js and Python for reliable, scalable data collection.
Ravelation
Economic Modeling SaaS Platform
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Key Results
The Challenge
A pioneering economist needed his open-source modeling tool turned into a production SaaS product — spanning a legacy Angular app, a Python backend, and a new marketing site — all under a tight budget with a distributed team across time zones.
Our Solution
Served as sole developer across three codebases: built a Next.js marketing site with Payload CMS and Paddle payments, engineered secure WebAssembly delivery for a proprietary visualization plugin, and created an economic data portal with FRED/OECD ETL pipelines and interactive charting.
Parse
AI Brand Monitoring
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Key Results
The Challenge
Brands had no way to track how frequently (or accurately) AI assistants like ChatGPT and Claude mention their products, leaving a blind spot in their marketing intelligence.
Our Solution
Built a monitoring platform that systematically queries AI models, analyzes mentions and sentiment, and surfaces actionable analytics through a clean dashboard. Deployed on AWS with PostgreSQL for robust data storage.
How we work together
One engineer, three ways in
Every engagement is built and run by the same person who scoped it. No account managers, no offshore handoffs, no surprise team of six.
Ongoing
Fractional engineering department
A senior engineer on call for your business, without the salary, the recruiting, or the management overhead. I keep what you have running, fix what breaks, and build what's next, at a monthly retainer sized to how much you actually need.
- One engineer who knows your whole stack
- Website, apps, portals, integrations, hosting
- Vendor wrangling: the POS, the booking system, the CRM
- Monthly priorities you set, no committees
- In person in the Coachella Valley
Fixed scope
Builds and rebuilds
The member app, the owner portal, the dispatch tool, the booking flow that finally works on a phone. Scoped up front, built in 60 to 90 days, owned by you when it's done. Most start with the free audit and a one-page memo.
- Custom web and mobile apps (iOS and Android)
- Member, customer, tenant, and owner portals
- Rebuilds of dated sites and legacy systems
- Booking, scheduling, and payments flows
- Fixed price, fixed timeline, clean handoff
Woven in
AI and automation
Not another chatbot. AI put inside the work your team already does: intake that sorts itself, follow-ups that go out on time, reports that write themselves, documents that get read so nobody has to. Built on whatever fits your tools and your budget.
- Intake, scheduling, and inbox automation
- Dispatch, routing, and follow-up
- Document processing and reporting
- Internal copilots for ops and front desk
- Connected to the software you already pay for
Also available
Supporting services
Work that often pairs with the above, or stands on its own when that's what you need.
Vibe-code to production
Built a prototype with Cursor, Lovable, v0, or Claude? I take it the rest of the way: security, architecture, hosting, and the parts the AI skipped.
Mobile development
Cross-platform iOS and Android apps with React Native, shipped to both stores.
Media and broadcast platforms
News sites, CMS, streaming, and apps for stations and publishers. I built one from scratch.
Accessibility and compliance
WCAG audits and remediation, built into the work rather than bolted on.
Performance and SEO
Core Web Vitals, caching, and rendering wins for the site you already have.
Media production
Photo, video, scripting, and post-production for marketing assets.
Ready to start?
Two ways to begin
Most engagements start with the free audit. If you already know what you need, skip straight to a scope and a price.
Free 30-minute audit
Thirty minutes on whatever is slowing you down, in person if you're in the valley, and a one-page memo on what I'd fix first. No obligation.
Book the auditAlready know what you need?
A member app, an owner portal, a rebuild, an integration that's been on the list for a year. Tell me what it is and I'll come back with a scope, a timeline, and a price.
Send the projectNewland Creatives
fractional engineering · custom web and mobile apps · AI and automation
Palm Desert, CA · Coachella Valley in person, remote everywhere else