AUGUSTUS ENGINEERING BUILDING USEFUL THINGS IN PUBLIC · KANSAS

I build software, hardware, and the occasional ridiculous prototype.

Engineering manager by day. Builder by night. Augustus Engineering is where I explore ideas that don't fit neatly into a job description. Some become software. Some become hardware. Some become businesses. Most start with a question: "Can I build a better way?"

DOMAIN-A

Software

Practical apps, backends, and AI-assisted tooling.

01Web & mobile apps
02APIs & backends
03AI-assisted features & automation
04Data pipelines & visualization
05Integrations that tie it all together

orchestrator.ts · tracev3.14.2

[14:02:11.084] svc.scheduler  → tick (gen=84211)
[14:02:11.087] svc.compute    ↘ accept job=J-7c1f
[14:02:11.099] svc.compute    · cgroup.bind cpu=4 mem=2Gi
[14:02:11.142] svc.compute    · model.warm  cache_hit=1
[14:02:11.318] svc.compute    ✓ job=J-7c1f t=219ms
[14:02:11.319] svc.scheduler  ← ack    queue_depth=3

DOMAIN A / SOFTWARE

DOMAIN-B

Hardware

Electronics, fabrication, and prototypes that physically exist.

01Embedded electronics & sensors
023D printing & fabrication
03Cooling, thermal & power tinkering
04Telemetry & monitoring
05Real-world problem solving

encl-rev-B.dwg · isoø 1:1

DOMAIN B / HARDWARE

BUILDING SOFTWARE

10+

years, professionally

DOMAINS

software & hardware

TEAM SIZE

just me, after hours

BASED IN

Kansas, USA

SECTION / 01 THE STORY

ORIGIN

Why Augustus Engineering exists.

I spent more than a decade building software professionally. Eventually I realized the projects I enjoyed most weren't assigned to me — they were the ones I couldn't stop thinking about after work.

Augustus Engineering is where those ideas live. Some become software. Some become hardware. Some become businesses. Every project starts with a problem worth solving and a willingness to learn whatever is necessary to solve it.

SECTION / 02 PORTFOLIO

WORK · SELECTED

Things I've built.

Real projects, started with a real problem. Some I use every day, some are still on the bench, some are just experiments that escaped the lab.

01 · SOFTWARE ACTIVE

BudgetScope

A personal grocery-spend tracker that turns paper and email receipts into structured purchase history. Computer vision and an LLM-backed agent extract line items, prices, store, and date — building a personal price database you can query in plain English: "where is milk cheapest?" Every dollar is grounded in a receipt you actually scanned.

BUILT WITH

Angular 17 PWA ASP.NET Core GPT-4 Vision OCR Firebase MySQL XCode iOS native redesign

Personal finance · grocery

02 · SOFTWARE IN DEVELOPMENT

Money Ledger

A personal finance platform built to answer a simple question: "Where did my money actually go?" It helps people understand spending behavior through automation, AI-powered receipt processing, and data visualization.

BUILT WITH

Angular FastAPI Plaid AI receipts

Personal finance

03 · SOFTWARE PLANNED

NewPath

Prepare, document, and organize every step of a divorce. From asset inventories and financial records to timelines, notes, and planning checklists, NewPath helps replace chaos with a clear path forward.

FOCUS

Stay Organized Protect Important Records Track Assets Document Events Plan Next Steps

Life logistics

04 · SOFTWARE ACTIVE

Health Journal

A natural-language health tracking application. Instead of filling out forms, you simply describe what happened — and the system organizes symptoms, events, food consumption, and timelines automatically.

FOCUS

Natural language Symptom tracking Timelines

Health & wellness

05 · HARDWARE CONCEPT

Ryobi Battery Cooling System

A hardware experiment that started with a lawn mower repeatedly shutting down during summer heat. It evolved into thermal analysis, cooling system design, prototype fabrication, and data collection — a practical engineering solution born from frustration.

WORK

Thermal analysis Cooling design Fabrication

Hardware experiment

06 · HARDWARE / CONCEPT CONCEPT

Custom Smart Key Fob

A concept project exploring a modern vehicle key fob that combines telemetry, display technology, utility features, and playful user experiences — an intersection of automotive engineering, embedded systems, and product design.

EXPLORING

Telemetry Display tech Embedded systems Product design

Concept · automotive

SECTION / 03 LEARNING IN PUBLIC

ACTIVE EXPERIMENTS

Questions I'm currently trying to answer.

Some of my time goes to questions with no client and no deadline — just curiosity. These are the experiments I'm running right now.

ACTIVE EXPERIMENTS

NO.STATEQUESTIONWHAT I'M EXPLORING

01 RUNNING How much of a software team can AI replace? Exploring agentic development workflows, AI-assisted product development, and autonomous software delivery systems.

02 RUNNING Can consumer hardware solve industrial problems? Testing inexpensive hardware, sensors, cooling systems, telemetry platforms, and monitoring solutions.

03 RUNNING What happens when software engineers build physical products? Exploring CAD, 3D printing, manufacturing, embedded systems, and product development.

SECTION / 04 PHILOSOPHY

WHAT I BELIEVE

Good engineering isn't about complexity. It's about making useful things.

The strongest thing I have isn't expertise — it's curiosity. Less "elite engineering consultancy," more one engineer constantly building, learning, and sharing what he discovers.

The best projects usually start small:

A problem worth solving

A willingness to learn

A prototype

A lot of iteration

That's how every project at Augustus Engineering begins.

SECTION / 05 LET'S TALK

CONTACT

If you're building something interesting, I'd like to hear about it.

I'm always up for trading notes, collaborating on something strange, or just talking shop. Drop a line below, or reach me directly.