Full-stack · AI in products · Creative coding

Geoffrey Heckmann.

I build the machine. Then I run it. Then I hand it over.

Twelve years, catalogued.

Twenty things, six disciplines. Turn a card over for what it took.

Discipline20 of 20

Etix Everywhere · 2014QR-code physical access system for a datacenter floor — the credential is printed, the check is embedded.

Twelve years, nine posts, four of them CTO.

Scroll to grow the helix · oldest at the top, newest at the tail

Everything I can actually operate.

Every capability I have, worth up to five skill points and laid out the way it was learned: a cell opens once a neighbour in its own discipline has a point in it. Nothing can be driven past what has actually shipped — the cells that stop short say so on the rim.

104/104skill points left
  • Leadership & Product: Four CTO seats. The part that does not compile.
    • Technical strategy & roadmap5 of 5 skill points shipped in production. Twelve years of deciding what not to build.
    • Architecture review & due diligence5 of 5 skill points shipped in production. Reading someone else's system before money moves.
    • Hiring & engineering culture4 of 5 skill points shipped in production. Teams built from zero, twice over.
    • Team leadership · 4 CTO seats5 of 5 skill points shipped in production. Objectify, Ternoa, ViVoka, Meria.
    • Product direction4 of 5 skill points shipped in production. Roadmaps that survive contact with users.
    • Founder & board alignment4 of 5 skill points shipped in production. Translating engineering reality upward.
  • Frontend & Creative Coding: Where the machine gets a face.
    • TypeScript · React · Next.js5 of 5 skill points shipped in production. The daily instrument. App Router, RSC, the lot.
    • Three.js · React Three Fiber4 of 5 skill points shipped in production. Every 3D object on this page.
    • GLSL shaders · procedural geometry4 of 5 skill points shipped in production. Nothing here is a texture file.
    • Simulation & motion design4 of 5 skill points shipped in production. Motion derived, not keyframed.
    • Tailwind · design systems4 of 5 skill points shipped in production. Tokens first, components second.
    • React Native · Unity · C#3 of 5 skill points shipped in production. Shipped mobile and real-time before the web caught up.
  • Backend & Infrastructure: The part nobody sees until it stops.
    • Node · Python · Rust · C/C++4 of 5 skill points shipped in production. Down to the metal when the metal is the problem.
    • Postgres · MongoDB · Redis4 of 5 skill points shipped in production. Schema design, migrations, the cost of both.
    • REST · GraphQL · RPC4 of 5 skill points shipped in production. Contracts that outlive their authors.
    • Vercel · GCP · Cloudflare · Supabase4 of 5 skill points shipped in production. Deployed, metered, and paid for.
    • Observability · Sentry · PostHog3 of 5 skill points shipped in production. You cannot run what you cannot see.
  • AI: One genuine credential, and a deliberate rebuild.
    • Voice AI SDK · shipped, 4 years4 of 5 skill points shipped in production. ViVoka. Four years, in production, on device.
    • Applied ML product leadership4 of 5 skill points shipped in production. Scoping what a model is actually allowed to decide.
    • LLM app integration3 of 5 skill points in build. In build — shipped internally, not yet for a client.
    • RAG · embeddings · vector stores2 of 5 skill points in build. In build — retrieval quality is the whole game.
    • Agentic tooling · MCP2 of 5 skill points in build. In build — tools, not chat.
    • Evals & prompt workflow2 of 5 skill points in build. In build — the only honest way to claim the rest.
  • Web3: History, not identity. Still load-bearing.
    • Solidity · smart-contract architecture5 of 5 skill points shipped in production. Contracts in production holding real assets.
    • EVM chains · Viem · Ethers4 of 5 skill points shipped in production. Mainnet, L2s, and the gas bills.
    • Substrate · Rust chains4 of 5 skill points shipped in production. An L1 in Polkadot, from inception to launch.
    • Audits & security review4 of 5 skill points shipped in production. Commissioned them, answered them, fixed them.
Scroll to run the three acts · the shape resolves as you go

The same three acts, every time.

Act I · Noise

There's noise first.

Six directions, three stacks, a deadline and no consensus. The first job isn't building — it's finding out which of those things are real, and saying so out loud.

Act 1 of 3

Act I · Noise

Let's talk.

If you have a product and no CTO, or a CTO and no time — that's what I'm for. Fractional engineering leadership, an architecture second opinion, AI inside an existing product, or a build from zero.

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