Product leader · AI orchestration

I don't write the code. I build and direct the team that ships it.

I turn vision into shipped product by building and directing an AI team. Sixteen years at Amazon, a climb from the floor to Program Manager, taught me how real things get shipped. Now a nine-person AI team I built and direct takes an idea from problem to live product.

See the work About Gary →
Gary Buchanan
Shipped
Filari · AI job-search copilot
StreamScout · Twitch opportunity analyzer
SparksLab · AI build platform
Selected work

Products, not slideware.

Every one of these is real, running, and built by the team I direct.

Job-search product · in active build

Filari

AI job-search copilot · web + browser extension
Good people get auto-filtered by the same handful of AI screeners before a human ever reads them. Filari interviews a person about their real work, builds an honest record from it, and makes that record legible to the machines standing at the gate, then routes them toward the roles their real experience actually fits.
Built to surface the real person the algorithms flatten.
Consumer product · live

StreamScout

Twitch streaming opportunity analyzer · web
New streamers burn months on games already crowded with bigger channels. StreamScout shows them where the real openings are, the games and niches where their effort can actually get seen. I took it from idea to production in 15 days.
2,200+ users and 7,300+ page views, all organic.
Platform · in build

SparksLab

AI build platform · multi-agent system
Most people can describe what they want built but cannot build it themselves. SparksLab is the platform version of how I work: a coordinated AI team that takes a person's idea and ships it. I designed the contributor lifecycle, the planning cadences, the spec gates, and the cost controls that make a multi-agent build repeatable instead of chaotic.
The system that builds everything else on this page.
And a lot more the team has shipped
Veil A voice interface -- Android app, server, and voice pipeline -- that brings the team into the room.
Screeps Companion A full-stack companion app for the programming game Screeps.
Benchmark Suite A benchmark and ablation harness built to measure how the AI team actually performs. Measure, don't guess.
Outreach Pipeline An automated pipeline that generates and deploys client demo sites.
Cole A safety-scoped AI assistant that lets a non-technical user safely operate a complex system.
How I work

Not a prompt and a prayer. An org.

Every company is scrambling to figure out how to operate with AI. I have been doing it for real: nine specialists, each with a lane, shipping production software on real timelines.

Team room How I run the team

A real exchange, the way the team actually works: I ask, a specialist answers, and the others build on it. I set direction. They ship.

Gary · directs
Question: can we add a contact form to the site, or is that just asking for spam?
Seraph · engineering
Easy build. Serverless endpoint, posts straight to your inbox. Staged tonight if you want it.
Smith · security
Adding to Seraph's plan: a bare endpoint gets found by bots inside a week. Honeypot field, rate-limit by IP, and don't log message bodies, that's stored data we don't need to be holding.
Seraph · engineering
Good catch. Both are cheap, folding them in. And no stored messages at all then, straight relay to email, nothing at rest. Revised version on the preview tonight.

Built on Claude Code, in a UI I designed and the team built.

Architect Neo Seraph Oracle Persephone Smith Morpheus Analyst Link I direct GARY

Nine specialists, one room. They talk to each other, not just to me.

Architect
Systems & infrastructure
→
Neo
Product & strategy
→
Seraph
Engineering
→
Oracle
UX & design
→
Persephone
Voice & user empathy
→
Smith
Security
→
Morpheus
Coordination
→
Analyst
Data & findings
→
Link
QA & verification
→
Live
Don't take my word for it. Talk to the team.
Most portfolios give you a chatbot to ask about the person. This one gives you the people who do the work. Ask them what it is like to build with me. The conversation is the proof.
Pick anyone on the team above and ask what it is like to build with me.
About

Sixteen years, floor to Program Manager. Now, a new way to ship.

I spent sixteen years at Amazon and climbed the whole way: associate, then lead, then manager, then program specialist, then program manager, then Program Manager II. I learned how complicated things actually ship by doing the work at every level, 200+ retail site launches in a year, platform migrations, broken support orgs turned around. The throughline never changed: I'm the person who gets teams that can't see each other moving toward one finish line.

When I left, I wanted to know if I could still build without a department behind me. So I built the department, an AI team I direct the way I used to direct people. We've shipped real products to real users ever since. I can't write the code, I never could, but I know how to take an idea from vision to live, and now I have a team that executes at the speed of my decisions.

I'm looking for the seat where that combination matters most: turning AI capability into shipped outcomes, and building the process and people to make it repeatable. If your company is trying to figure out how to operate in the AI era, I've already been living it.

Experience16 yrs · Amazon, associate to Program Manager
Shipped products4+ live
Team I run9 AI specialists
BasedRichland, WA / remote
Open toProduct, program & AI-operator roles

Let's talk.

If you're building in the AI era and need someone who already does this, I'd love to hear from you.

Get in touch See the work →