Director, Software Engineering | Actionable content for leaders in tech. Software engineering, engineering leadership, online business.

I build production AI systems and teach software engineers to do the same.Every week I create real AI systems and automations that save time, save money, and increase leverage. Then I show you exactly how I built them. Complete code. Deployed to production. No theory.I've spent 20 years building software systems and leading engineering teams. Now I'm focused on applied AI - building systems that solve real problems and teaching others to do the same.I run two things:AI Engineer - A community where professional software engineers learn production AI through weekly live builds, code reviews, and hands-on projects. We build together: RAG pipelines, autonomous agents, automations.Leverage AI - Custom AI development for businesses when off-the-shelf tools aren't enough. AI systems, intelligent workflows, and automations that scale your business operations.📩 Get my free weekly newsletter: newsletter.owainlewis.com👥 Join the community: skool.com/aiengineer💼 Work with me directly: leverageai.co

Owain Lewis

Mayvue Solutions

Software Engineering Manager

Mortgage Cadence

FirstBank

Application Developer III, Technical Lead for Empower

Brade, LLC

• Serve as an IT services provider for a local manufacturing facility and provide help desk support, network management, web development and general technology consulting services.

Owner

Financial Earnings Services, Inc.

• Function as a contract developer for Financial Earning Services, Inc. to provide software development for the Empower for .NET mortgage origination platform. Worked on custom software implementation teams with two lenders who each have assets of over ten billion dollars.
• Served as a lead Empower developer in a custom software project to build a façade layer over the Empower application to give other developers a higher level API to work with the application.

C# .NET / Empower Consultant

Asurint

• Joined an agile sprint team with the goal of supporting and enhancing numerous internal and external applications.
• Supported websites and web services created using C#, SQL Server 2008 and ASP.NET and hosted in IIS. Websites and web services were used by many different types of users.
• Supported internal desktop applications using C#, .NET, SQL Server 2008 and Winforms. The applications were used by nearly 100 internal users.
• Lead an integration of our software platform with a leading applicant tracking system to create more revenue opportunities.

C# .NET Developer

Capital One

• Traveled weekly by air to Wilmington, DE or Plano, TX to work on an integration project for two customers who recently merged.
• Integrated myself in to an Agile environment using Scrum and Version One. ING Direct/Capital One 360 is a fantastic Scrum environment as the company implements agile from a top-down perspective. Worked with a 3rd party agile coach and attended a two-day training session on Agile/Scrum and Version One.
• Practiced TDD while using the tools MS Test and Typemock Isolator.
• Mentor new developers to help them ramp up on the Empower application and framework. Quickly learned the practices and processes of the customer to also train the new developers in these areas.
• Worked closely with many roles including product owners, business process owners, technical team leads, quality analysts and other developers to create and implement solutions to fulfill business goals.
• Conducted ad-hoc research at the request of the product owner to help address and resolve questions on the differences between the two Empower platforms.

Empower Contractor

Lender Processing Services, Inc. (LPS)

• Collaborated with over 100 software developers, quality assurance analysts and business analysts to support and enhance the Empower for .NET loan origination system using C#, the MVC design pattern, Microsoft .NET versions 2-4, multiple versions of MS SQL Server through 2008 R2, multiple versions of Visual Studio through 2010, Team Foundation Server (TFS) and Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) services.
• Fixed bugs in the application that were reported from a wide variety of users including developers, QA analysts and customers. Engaged additional resources when necessary to understand the specific section of our application to ensure a clean fix. Worked productively in a source controlled development environment.
• Designed and implemented software features that were critical to our customers’ day-to-day operations. Often a challenging task because new features must be designed to target the common ground of a large group of customers.
• Took ownership of several key parts of our software and became a subject matter expert in these areas. 
• Worked closely with our business analysts and company partners to implement custom versions of our product to meet their business requirements. Custom versions are developed on a timeline and hours estimate that I routinely met. Selected as an initial team member for customer specific teams on three occasions.

Application Programmer

Regions Bank

• Traveled weekly by air to Birmingham, AL to work on a dedicated implementation project where my role spanned 14 months. 
• Integrated myself to a foreign environment to become a team member and top contributor on the project. Gained the trust of management and business analysts to deliver recommended courses of action on the viability of feature requests and business requirements. 
• Worked frequently with non-technical analysts who had business requirements and was required to implement a technical design from the top down. 
• Helped new and existing developers ramp up on our application and software framework. Worked with the developers from the customer to train them on our software framework and answer questions.

JMC Steel Group

• Worked in a team environment to support 300+ corporate users and their technology problems. Gained “general IT knowledge” in several areas to be able to address the wide range of questions the Help Desk encountered. Supported printers, scanners, mobile devices, desktop and laptop PC’s, servers and a large amount of company and non-company software.  Contacted vendors to resolve issues when necessary.
• Assisted in the development of a custom manufacturing application that utilized C# and Microsoft.NET and targeted Symbol handheld scanners running Windows CE. 
• Distributed, upgraded and supported 200+ mobile devices across multiple wireless carriers and worked with external vendors to maintain stability. Devices include several BlackBerry models, iPhones and basic mobile phones.
• Collaborated with employees and management to discuss IT requests and effective resolutions to each request. 
• Completed company backups using a platform of Unix, Windows Server 2003/Symantec BackupExec and IBM iSeries servers.
• Wrote software using C# .NET and VBScript for personal use at work to aid in troubleshooting and fixing problems. Designed scripts to decrease the resolution time of common problems.

PC Technician / Programming Specialist

Here's the first thing to know about me: I love building software that solves problems.

My career as a timeline:
2008: help desk
2009: help desk
2010: junior software developer
2011: mid-level software developer
2012: software consultant
2013: software consultant
2014: self-employed
2015: tech lead
2016: senior software engineer
2017: senior software engineer
2018: software architecture
2019: engineering manager
2020: engineering manager
2021: engineering manager
2022: engineering senior manager
2023: engineering senior manager
2024: in progress

Today, I've managed countless teams and engineers. I've seen success and failure.

Leveling up is the ONLY way to make it. Treading water is falling behind.

Software engineering feels like an opaque system. I share the most important lessons to build a rewarding and successful career. 

Anyone can unlock their full potential. Assuming, they're willing to do the work. Most people are not.

Your career in software engineering is like exploring a jungle; it's best to travel with a guide.

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The Battle

Owain Lewis

Ryan Rodemoyer

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