Product judgement
Clear priorities and practical roadmaps grounded in customer, technical and commercial understanding.
AI product engineer, founder, & consultant
Turn complex AI ideas into working products.
I work from customer problem to production system: defining the product, making the architecture decisions, writing the software and staying accountable through launch, operations and growth.
Queenstown-based. Working across New Zealand, Australia and worldwide.
01Product. Engineering. Delivery.
$20M+
raised across three rounds
40+
people in a global team
200K+
developer community built
0 → revenue
with a production AI startup
First class
BEng Software Engineering
The difference
There is a wide gap between a good plan and a finished product.
Complex projects fail in the execution gap between a credible plan and a working system. I bridge it by combining product judgement, software engineering, delivery and commercial reality in one engagement.
Hands-on engineering
Production AI and software systems across React, TypeScript, Node.js, .NET, Python and cloud infrastructure.
End-to-end ownership
From customer discovery and architecture to code, deployment, operations and continuous improvement.
Commercial experience
Fundraising, pricing, enterprise sales, partnerships and go-to-market from early stage through scale.
Governance & assurance
Traceability, human review and practical AI risk controls for regulated and high-trust environments.
Who I work with
Senior capacity for the work that matters most.
Founders & early-stage teams
You need senior technical and product leadership to turn a real opportunity into a credible, production-ready product.
Product & technology leaders
You have an important initiative or delivery problem that needs experienced execution, not another layer of management.
Agencies & delivery partners
You need a senior contractor who can enter a client engagement, handle ambiguity and deliver without constant supervision.
Government & regulated organisations
You need to identify where AI creates value and move from policy into safe, practical implementation.
Services
How I can help.
Bring me in for a defined AI product, embedded engineering capacity, or hands-on technical leadership across an initiative.
01
AI product engineering
Take an AI-enabled product from a real customer problem to a deployed, useful system.
- Discovery, architecture and technical validation
- Agentic workflows, RAG, MCP servers, and structured outputs
- Production delivery, evaluation and human review
02
Product & engineering leadership
Hands-on product and technical leadership without the delay or cost of a permanent executive hire.
- Roadmaps and practical prioritisation
- Architecture and build-versus-buy decisions
- Team design, hiring and delivery governance
03
Senior software engineering
Hands-on capacity for teams that need critical software designed, built and shipped properly.
- React, TypeScript, .NET and Node.js
- APIs, integrations and event-driven systems
- Performance, reliability, testing and technical debt
04
AI transformation, governance & assurance
Move from generic AI pilots to proportionate controls and a practical operating model.
- AI opportunity and maturity assessment
- Governance, procurement and assurance
- Safe implementation in high-trust environments
Selected work
Built in the real world.
Production work across AI products, developer infrastructure, compliance, regulated delivery and global startups.
AI compliance platform
Porticus
Founder & lead product engineer
Personally building an AI-native platform that turns operational documents and obligations into structured, source-traceable compliance programmes.
LLM pipelinesEvent-driven AzureKnowledge graphs
Blockchain infrastructure
SubQuery & OnFinality
Chief Product Officer
Led product and engineering through seed stage, product-market fit, token generation and public listing, while building a 40+ person global team.
$20M+ raised200K+ communityDeveloper platforms
AI customer service
8ai
Co-founder & CTO
Built a production AI support product from zero to revenue, combining multi-agent workflows with knowledge-grounded conversations.
RAGMulti-agentCashflow positive
Government & high-trust environments
AI transformation & governance
Confidential NZ organisations
Designed practical AI transformation, governance and assurance approaches for organisations balancing opportunity, safety and public trust.
ISO 42001NIST AI RMFAssurance
Insurance technology
Sentro
Technical product leadership & engineering
Led delivery of a group-insurance platform, then returned to deliver production features across .NET, Angular and React.
Regulated delivery.NETAzure
Additional experience
AI investment intelligence
Citation-backed investment memos from unstructured startup material.
Backstory
Product strategy for sustainability-certification software.
Bitquery
AI-enabled lead intelligence and churn analysis for blockchain data.
Workplace SaaS
Production features, test automation and architecture improvements.
Task / Plexure
Product work for global marketing automation at scale.
How I work
Useful output,
not more ceremony.
- 01
Define the outcome
Clarify the business objective, users, constraints, risks and what success should look like.
- 02
Reduce the uncertainty
Validate the product direction, technical approach and delivery plan before committing unnecessary time or capital.
- 03
Build in working increments
Deliver usable software and decisions early. Test with real users, then adjust based on evidence.
- 04
Leave the team stronger
Document important decisions, transfer context and build systems the internal team can continue operating.
Capability
Enough range to see the whole problem.
Hands-on depth where it counts, with enough range to connect technical decisions to customer, operational and commercial outcomes.
AI & data
RAG, multi-agent workflows, structured outputs, document extraction, traceability, OpenAI, Azure AI, Python and data pipelines.
Product engineering
React, TypeScript, Node.js, .NET Core, C#, Angular, REST APIs, SQL, PostgreSQL and Microsoft SQL Server.
Cloud & operations
Azure, AWS, GCP, serverless and event-driven systems, CI/CD, monitoring, secure infrastructure and cost optimisation.
Product & commercial
Discovery, architecture, roadmaps, UX, delivery governance, team design, pricing, partnerships, enterprise sales and fundraising.
Software engineer
Product leader
Founder & operator
About James
Software engineer.
Product leader.
Founder.
I started as a software engineer and moved into technical product leadership because the hardest product problems span both disciplines.
I have built AI products from zero to revenue, designed and shipped production software, led distributed teams, raised capital and worked directly with enterprise customers.
I now bring that combination to organisations that need a senior engineer who can make strong product decisions and remain accountable for the working result.
Work with meStart a conversation
Bring me the
messy version.
If you have a difficult product, delivery problem or AI opportunity, you do not need to turn it into a polished brief before getting in touch.
Tell me what you are trying to achieve, where it is stuck and what constraints you are working with. I will tell you directly whether I can help.
james@bayly.xyz