Independent Engagements

Results Delivery

Innovation / technology refresh for software companies, media companies, and teams securing AI/ML systems. Thirty years of shipping, from NeXT and Apple to the NFL, Disney, Symantec, Intel, Ford, and currently: Snowcap Compute.

Email about an engagement How engagements work
01 · Software companies
Ship every day, again.
For product and platform teams whose delivery has slowed, or whose stack is due for a refresh.
  • Delivery assessment that measures flow, not activity: flow time, queue depth, rework, decision latency.
  • Platform and architecture refresh roadmaps that keep the product shippable at every step.
  • Adopting AI-assisted engineering with a harness that enforces gates, not a prompt that hopes.
  • Release practice that decouples deploy from release, so a launch is a flag flip.

Built on Telemetry · SSD · Releases for Small Teams

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02 · Media & live venues
Systems that cannot go dark.
For live, immersive, and venue-based media, including large-format venues.
  • Show-system lifecycle review: display, audio, playback, show control, haptics, and the network that ties them together.
  • One reference architecture for many venues: standardize the physics, bespoke the experience.
  • Staged cutover between shows, with rollback kept live until the new system is proven.
  • Fan-facing apps and companion experiences across mobile, TV, and console platforms.

Built on Domain-Adaptive Manufacturing · SSD

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03 · AI/ML security
The model proposes. The harness enforces.
For teams putting AI agents and ML models into software pipelines, factories, and other systems where a wrong action costs something.
  • Authority design for agents: grants that live outside the repo, single use, bound to a snapshot, and a ship step only a human runs.
  • Clear lines between AI that supervises and the certified layer that keeps things safe. The model is never the safety layer.
  • Security review of AI-generated configuration and code paths, from threat model to audit trail.
  • Evidence-based evaluation of AI vendor claims: every claim states its regime, tolerance, test, and date.

Built on SSD · Domain-Adaptive Manufacturing · True As Of

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How engagements work

Start small. Stay shippable.

Each phase ends with something you can use, whether or not we go further.

01

Assessment

A short, fixed-scope look at where you are. Inventory the systems, instrument the flow, and name the constraint. You get a written baseline and a ranked risk register.

Built on Telemetry

02

Architecture

A reference architecture for what comes next: what to standardize, what to keep bespoke, and where the boundaries of authority and safety sit.

Built on Domain-Adaptive Manufacturing

03

Refresh roadmap

Replace, extend, or retire, system by system. Vendor evaluations run on evidence, and every step of the plan leaves you in a shippable state.

Built on True As Of · SSD

04

Advisory or fractional

Ongoing support while your team executes: architecture review, vendor sessions, and program leadership on a part-time basis.

The rule for every engagement. Process is a tool, not an identity. If a practice does not increase your velocity, improve an outcome, or reduce your risk, we change it.

Built on Agile²

Selected work

Proof, not promises.

01

NFL Now, multi-platform delivery

Led engineering delivery of NFL Now: 37 engineers across 8 teams shipped on 9 platforms in 9 months, on time.

02

Intel Sports, immersive media

Immersive fan experiences built with augmented reality, virtual reality, and volumetric video for the Olympic Games, the NFL, and Major League Baseball.

03

Apple, device self-test at scale

Factory software and ML-driven device self-test for Apple products, including Vision Pro.

04

Ford, software-defined factories

Led software, operations, and manufacturing work for software-defined factories.

05

Symantec, Global Security Office

Led the CustomerONE program in Symantec's Global Security Office. Delivered 400% more stories and took internal adoption from 25% to 85%.

06

NeXT and Snowcap Compute

Release engineering for WebObjects at NeXT. Today, leading manufacturing operations and test at Snowcap Compute, which is building the world's first superconducting digital compute chips at scale.

The methods

Published, open, and in use.

The thinking behind every engagement is written down at insanelygreat.com.

SSD

Shippable States Development. An AI-amplified engineering discipline: keep a deployable state at all times. The model proposes. The harness enforces.

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Domain-Adaptive Manufacturing

A reference architecture for software that configures itself to the operation it runs. Standardize the physics, bespoke the experience.

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Agile²

Process is a tool, not an identity. If a practice doesn't increase velocity or reduce risk, change it.

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True As Of

Every claim carries its regime, tolerance, test, and date. The standard used to judge vendor claims and our own.

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Telemetry

Instrumenting the Organization. Measure the flow of work through an organization the way you would a production line, so interventions can be verified.

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Fooling Yourself

Feynman's “Cargo Cult Science” with engineering commentary. Why a gate a report can argue with is not a gate.

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Let's talk

Have a refresh coming?

Tell me what you run, what is getting old, and what cannot go dark. I will tell you plainly whether I can help.

Email Alex or write to alex@alexhorovitz.com · subject: Technology Engagement