Phone
Address
Wehlistraße 291/1/47
1020 Vienna
Craft Doesn't Disappear. It Moves.
Machines have absorbed the craftsman's hands before. What they have never absorbed is the judgement about what deserves to be made. That judgement is the part I now hand to other people.
Foryears,thescarcethingwaspeoplewhocouldwritethecode.Thateraendedquietly.What'sscarcenowisknowingwhichsystemdeservestoexist,whereitsedgesbelong,andwhichshortcutquietlycostsayear.Softwarestillfailsslowly.Notinacrash,butinsmalldecisionsnobodyhadtimetoquestion.Agentsmakethosedecisionsfaster.Someonestillhastomakethemwell.
The Guild Model
A master's real legacy was never the objects
It was the apprentices who could work without him. The workshop outlived the craftsman because the knowledge had been built into the tools, the layout of the bench, and the habits of the people using them, not hoarded in one head.
That's the structure I've moved my practice to. Your team are the apprentices. The agents are hands: fast, tireless, literal-minded, and entirely without judgement. My job is the workshop itself: the foundation they build on, the constraints that keep them honest, and the training that keeps it all running once I've gone.
Why this is the opposite of deskilling
The fear about AI is that it hollows people out. What I see in practice is the reverse, provided someone sets the foundation. The person who understands the business finally gets to shape the software directly, instead of describing it through three layers of translation to a vendor who will never quite get it.
Domain knowledge stops being a requirements document and starts being the thing that builds the product. That's not less craft in the world. It's craft in more hands, which is what the guilds were for.
The line I won't cross
Handing over a system nobody on your side understands isn't a handover, it's an abandonment with extra steps. Every engagement ends with people who can read what they own, change it safely, and tell when an agent has produced something plausible and wrong.
If that isn't true at the end, the work isn't finished, no matter how well the software runs.
Three Principles
Gestaltungsmut: the nerve to shape things
New technology is a responsibility before it's an opportunity. I'd rather help you decide what not to build than ship features nobody asked for. Every project should leave you more capable than it found you.
Capability over dependency
The easiest business model in this trade is to make yourself impossible to remove. I've built mine on the opposite bet: teach it, document it, hand it over. Clients who could leave tomorrow are the ones worth keeping.
Depth over disruption
I take on few projects at a time. That's not scarcity marketing. It's the only way I know to stay deep enough inside a system to make good decisions in it, and to be properly present while your team learns it.
Why I Open Source Almost Everything
The tools are public
b10cks, RAVN Mail, Kessel, gh0st, SabaccUI, and four Laravel packages all started as things I needed for my own work. Publishing them costs me nothing I wanted to keep. It also means you can read the code before you hire me, which is a better argument than anything written on this website.
Open source and a viable business
These aren't in tension. The tools I maintain in public get used, tested, and corrected by people I've never met, which makes the client work built on top of them cheaper and more reliable. Giving the foundation away is how I can charge fairly for the part that's specific to you. It's also the honest test of the method I'm selling.
No lock-in
You get the repository, the documentation, and a deployment pipeline your own team can run. If you decide to hire in-house developers or move to another partner, nothing about my stack should make that painful. A client who stays because leaving is expensive isn't a client relationship I want.
Where This Fits
If you want to own what you build
The alternative to this model is renting your software forever from whoever wrote it. That's a fine arrangement for them.
If you're planning past next quarter
A foundation costs more up front and far less over five years. If you need something disposable and fast, there are better options than me, and I'll say so on the first call.
If your people are the point
This only works if someone on your side wants to learn it. That person doesn't need to be a developer, but they do need to exist.
The Commitment
I'll tell you what something really costs, what I'm unsure about, and when a simpler solution would serve you better. Even when the bigger version would pay me more.
Every project ships with documentation and tests. Every tool I can open source, I do. Every estimate comes with the reasoning attached, so you can argue with it. And every engagement is built to end with your team standing on their own.
From Vienna, with respect for the craft and for the people I hand it to.