Senior engineering manager, AI integration and client delivery

Hudson Baker

I make AI the core of how engineering teams deliver, from the first sales call to launch.

For the past several years I led client project teams, and the engineers on them, at Briebug, a software consultancy. I managed staffing, hiring, pre-sales, and pricing while staying a 100% billable consultant. I co-led the firm's AI rollout and wrote the engineering process and AI usage policies behind it.

Eternally optimistic. Delusionally formidable.

How I lead Work Say hello
10
years in professional software
13
engineers managed at peak
3
apps shipped for a client startup in six months
5
client engagements run at once, at the most

How I lead

I keep every contract staffed and every engineer knowing where they stand.

  • Led up to 13 engineers, most of the engineering team at one point, through quarterly reviews, 1:1s, and performance interventions, and ran the promotion-readiness reviews.
  • Ran up to five client engagements at the same time, and kept my own work 100% billable on top.
  • Owned staffing and capacity against the contract roadmap. I interviewed candidates and made the hiring decisions.

Work

Building and rescuing software for clients, inside a budget and a deadline.

Shostak: three apps in six months, inside a capped budget

A streaming platform for independent filmmakers. A Briebug client project. I was the solution engineering lead and the technical lead.

The client wanted to work with us and hesitated on cost. I fit the scope to a negotiated cap and kept the cap visible, so every trade-off could be argued in the open. Sprint 0 meant the team was building product on day one instead of wiring up tools.

For a stretch late in the build, I was the only engineer. I designed the solution for the admin billing system and the creator revenue-share logic, and led the team that built them.

  • Delivered inside the cap, with a larger epic than we first agreed.
  • Three major releases.
  • A launch announced at the Sundance Film Festival.

Creator platform

Where filmmakers publish and manage their work. An upload starts by choosing a content tier, and each tier says what it is for.

Viewer app

Where audiences watch. It browses like a streaming service: worlds, series, seasons, episodes, then the player. It reflows for phones.

Admin app

Runs the platform behind the scenes, including the billing system and the creator revenue-share logic. It stays private.

The invoice that roughly doubled

A hand-off pushed a client's invoice to roughly double the original bid. I found the cause, corrected the engineer's practice, set up billing controls for that client, and negotiated the resolution. They did two more feature cycles and later signed a quarter-long engagement.

Modernizing legacy customer flows

Augmented a large enterprise client's team to modernize legacy customer flows. I added test coverage to stabilize the app and mentored the client's engineers.

Handoffs and audits

When full-time staff rolled off a client project, I led the AWS and infrastructure handoff and kept delivery steady. Separately, I audited another client team's productivity and infrastructure and presented my recommendations to leadership.

Pre-sales and pricing

On pre-sales calls I covered demos, discovery, feasibility, and early architecture, and I sized the solution and the price to fit. Shostak, above, is the clearest example.