Forward-deployed engineer · Applied AI

Daniel Kitchen.

Twenty years turning a customer's problem into a shipped, working system. Now I build those systems with AI agents — in production, measured, and trusted to run on their own.

For twenty years I've done the forward-deployed job without the title: sit with the problem, scope it, build it, and own it until it works. At The Diffusion Co. I drove products from a first discovery call through twenty-three prototypes to paying customers — coordinating outside engineering contractors I had no authority over. The technology kept changing; the shape of the work never did. Today it's LLMs and agent systems, shipped with real evals.

18 · 85projects and roles run by one AJO router — now
98.1%eval pass on an 18-case, Opus-judged golden set (Fieldstone)
2,476tested recipes grounding the Yonder engine
23hardware units shipped to paying customers (Curie)

Shipped · live in the world

4 products
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Let's build something that ships.

I'm most useful where an AI agent has to leave the demo and survive contact with real users — deployed, measured, and trustworthy enough to run on its own. If that's the problem in front of you, let's talk.