Austin AI Engineer — Senior, Veteran-Led, Available
I am a senior AI engineer in Austin, Texas. An AI engineer designs, builds, and operates AI systems in production. I emphasize the production-operations side: eval harnesses, monitoring, deploy pipelines. Single-principal delivery, 25 years in computer science, U.S. Army veteran. Houston-anchored, Austin buyers served remote with kickoff travel available for engagements that justify it.
Austin as a buyer market for AI engineer work
Bee Cave, Round Rock, Cedar Park, South Congress, the Capitol corridor — Austin is the Texas startup capital and a public-sector tech surface. The dominant verticals are SaaS startups, B2B software, open-source-adjacent shops, public-sector tech contractors.
What I ship as a Austin AI Engineer
Production AI engineering — eval harnesses, observability, MLOps, drift detection, cost guardrails, deploy / rollback runbooks. The engagement shape adapts to which Austin vertical the buyer operates in — SaaS startups, B2B software, open-source-adjacent shops, public-sector tech contractors each have their own compliance posture, deploy posture, and procurement posture.
Who hires me as a Austin AI Engineer
Buyers across SaaS startups, B2B software, open-source-adjacent shops, public-sector tech contractors. The credential stack — 25 years computer science, B.S. CS from the University of Houston, U.S. Army veteran — registers consistently across Austin verticals. The single-principal accountability is the load-bearing differentiator: the engineer in the scoping call is the engineer writing the code.
How a Austin engagement is scoped
Scoping call (free, 30 minutes). Written specification (1-2 weeks, paid). Two-week sprints with a working demo at the end of each. Pest tests alongside features. Handover with runbook and 30-day post-launch support window. Day-to-day work is remote; kickoff travel to Austin for engagements that justify it.
The national AI engineer page
The AI engineer practice across the country, with the full scope detail, lives on the AI Engineer for Hire page. This page is the Austin-specific entry — same practice, same engineer, Austin-anchored copy.
Are you available for Austin engagements?
Yes — one engagement at a time, fully present. Day-to-day work is remote; flying in for a 1-2 day kickoff workshop is workable for engagements that justify it.
What is your hourly rate?
Bespoke, scoped per engagement, written into SOW before contract. Pricing depends on engagement shape — hourly retainer, fixed-scope project, or agency white-label all have different rate cards. The scoping call produces a written total before anything is signed.
Do you work with SaaS startups buyers in Austin?
Yes — that is one of the largest Austin verticals I work in. The engagement shape adapts to the compliance, deploy, and procurement constraints specific to SaaS startups.
How is this different from the national AI engineer page?
Same practice, same engineer, same engagement shape — Austin-anchored. This page exists for buyers searching by city; the national page lives at /ai-engineer with the full role scope detail.
Scope This Engagement
Single principal, plan first, working code on every checkpoint.
Start a Conversation