Looking for the right fit.
I'm at a pivot point. After 27 years, I'm not chasing the next job. I'm choosing the right one. A place where building, innovating, and pushing into the future frontier isn't just admired. It's actively encouraged. Allowed.
Most orgs aren't ready for that yet. Not because they don't want it. Because the team, the product, or the moment isn't where it needs to be to bring me on full-time without forcing a fit. And forcing a fit serves no one.
So I'm forging the path in smaller pieces. I don't want to miss the chance to learn, grow, and push. And I don't want the people who like what I do to miss out either, just because the full-time req isn't there yet.
If you're building something real, or you need a senior operator who can come in and do the work without a long ramp, I want to hear from you. The menu is below.
Full-time? The floor is $250K. For everything else (embedded, fractional, or a day at a time), keep reading.
I'm the person you want when the AI demo worked, but the enterprise rollout is stuck.
I work in the deployment layer between frontier AI tools and the messy reality of enterprise operations: unclear workflows, fragmented data, risk constraints, skeptical users, legacy systems that were never designed for intelligent automation.
My value isn't designing AI-enabled services. It's making AI deployable: aligning stakeholders, mapping real systems, identifying high-leverage use cases, shaping human-in-the-loop experiences, and turning field learning into product direction.
When the workflow is political, the users are wary, the data is messy, and the governance questions are real. That's the work.
Where this experience comes from.
Four orgs, four different stakes. Each one taught me something I bring to your build.
NASA
Principal Designer leading the AI Innovation Team. Built the strategy and patterns for deploying agentic AI in an org where "experimental" still has to clear scrutiny and the work matters at the level of human spaceflight.
Intuit
Years inside one of the largest consumer fintech orgs in the world. Product decisions ripple across tens of millions of customers. Every pattern lives across half a dozen platforms, and shipping responsibly means thinking systemically.
Mural
Worked the moment a startup becomes a real company: when the design system, the team structure, and the velocity all have to mature at once, without losing what made the early days work.
Insulet
Designed for medical devices where regulation isn't friction. It's the floor. Shipped under FDA-grade scrutiny in an environment where the consequences of a UX failure are measured in patient outcomes.
Available engagements.
Pick the shape that fits the work. Specs, terms, and rates below.
Embedded Build
You're building something: a new product, a hard feature, an MVP. I embed with your team for the run, head down on the work. You keep the keys; I bring the horsepower. Strategy, design, engineering, AI architecture, whatever the build needs.
Right for you if: you have a team and a target, and you need a senior operator who can ship across the stack.
Fractional Design & AI Leadership
Senior design and AI leadership without the headcount. I plug into your org weekly: roadmap, hiring, design review, agent strategy. Principal-level judgment, on retainer.
Right for you if: you're a startup or mid-size org that needs a leader at the table, not another vendor in the queue.
AI-Native Backport
Your product was built before agents. I come into your codebase, audit it, restructure for AI-native development, and leave your team with documentation they can actually use. Embedded for the duration.
Right for you if: your roadmap depends on agent-readiness and your codebase isn't there yet.
Day Rate
On-demand horsepower that doesn't ask questions. Strategy. Design review. Technical architecture. A prototype sprint. Whatever you need solved in a day, I show up, do the work, and leave you with the artifacts.
Right for you if: you need a senior pair of hands now, with no onboarding.
Full-Time
If you're building somewhere that pushing into the future frontier is the actual job (not the offsite slogan), I'm ready. Not "exploring options." Ready to jump in. The same intensity I bring to my own work, every day, on your problem.
Right for you if: you have a senior role with real runway, and you want someone who shows up on day one ready to ship.
See the resumeWhy hire me embedded.
I'm not a consultant who shows up with slides. I show up and work. I built Zero Vector to give the discipline a name, and I ship Fictioneer, Open Vector, and Kestris with AI agents because the only way to know what works is to build it. The track record above is the receipts. This is what I do now.
- Creator of Zero Vector, the design discipline for the AI age
- Ships products daily with AI agents: Fictioneer, Open Vector, Kestris
- Published sci-fi author (The Dauntless Gambit series)
- Writes, podcasts, and speaks weekly about AI-first design
People from these orgs have come through my workshops and courses.
Not sure what you need?
Book a call anyway. We'll figure out the right shape together, or I'll point you somewhere better.
Pick a TimeLooking for a team to deliver the build instead of joining yours? That's Arroyo Labs.