James Patton
Software Engineer & AI Product Builder
Building the future of technology with innovative solutions and cutting-edge AI
Connect with meAbout Me
Software Engineer & AI Product Builder
Note: This is a portfolio showcase of my work and projects. I am currently employed and not seeking new opportunities at this time.
With over 8 years of experience in software development and architecture, I specialize in creating innovative solutions that combine cutting-edge technologies with practical business needs. My expertise spans from full-stack development to AI implementation, with a strong focus on delivering high-quality, scalable applications.
I'm passionate about staying at the forefront of technology trends and applying them to solve real-world problems. My background in both development and design allows me to create solutions that are not only technically sound but also user-friendly and visually appealing.
Technical Skills
Frontend
Backend
DevOps & Tools
AI & LLMs
Digital Twins
Work Experience
Lead Software Developer
- •Led the design and delivery of AI-powered products from concept to production for planning and geospatial workflows
- •Built full-stack applications spanning frontend, backend, cloud infrastructure, AI systems, and automation
- •Designed scalable APIs, data pipelines, and AI workflows using OpenAI, LangChain, Redis, and ArcGIS
- •Led architecture decisions across multiple internal platforms and AI initiatives
Development Manager
- •Led cross-functional development teams, providing technical guidance and architectural direction for enterprise-scale projects
- •Architected and implemented robust data solutions using Microsoft SQL Server and Windows Presentation Framework
- •Established strategic partnerships between business units and IT teams to align technical solutions with organizational objectives
- •Engineered scalable front-end solutions using Episerver page builder, optimizing performance and user experience
Software Engineer
- •Architected and implemented responsive web solutions, transforming design mockups into production-ready applications
- •Engineered advanced analytics integration with content management systems to optimize user engagement metrics
- •Implemented comprehensive quality assurance protocols, reducing critical issues by 40% through systematic testing
- •Developed and deployed interactive UI components and prototypes, enhancing user experience and conversion rates
Building in the Open
Free, AGPL-licensed tools I built because the existing ones were bloated, ad-filled, or collected my data.
Playlisterr
Open SourcePersonalized “watch next” rows in every Plex user’s account, picked by a local LLM from titles you already own.
text.compare
Open SourceAn ad-free diff tool for text, code, documents, data and images. Comparing happens entirely in your browser.
Featured Projects
GridPriceBeta open
Live electricity prices for 33 states, now in beta. What began as an Android app for ComEd’s hourly pricing is now gridprice.app: a website, a public price API over 47 feeds, and a rebuilt app with widgets and alerts.
LatelyBeta open
A photo-sharing app and website, now in beta. Pick the last 1, 4, 8 or 24 hours of photos, and Lately makes one album with a QR code. Anyone can scan it and save the photos at full quality, iPhone or Android, with no app or account.
Euclid HL
A public AI planning and zoning application, live in communities across North America, that answers residents’ questions with cited answers grounded in each community’s adopted code — cited to the section, linked to the parcel on the map.
Wake Forest Digital Twin
An immersive Unreal Engine digital twin of downtown Wake Forest, NC, that let residents compare building heights and redevelopment at a public open house. The project won a 2026 Esri Special Achievement in GIS Award; I worked on the digital twin as part of the team.
Buff My Class
A dark, armory-inspired website for Buff My Class, a 400+ member World of Warcraft guild on Zul’jin (US). A vanilla-JS frontend backed by a Node.js server that pulls a live roster, raid progression, and gear from the Blizzard API and Raider.IO — a rich internal hub for the whole guild.
amceagle.com
A fan site for the AMC Eagle, the first crossover, built around my own 1988 Eagle Wagon: specs for every model year, a VIN decoder checked against real cars, and a car-show print kit with tracked QR codes.
Satellite Area Calculator
Used by 38,700+ people so far in 2026, 15x all of 2025: a web app for drawing and measuring areas and distances on satellite imagery with professional-grade accuracy. Built with Vue.js and the Google Maps API, it features a distance measurement tool for lines and paths, plus an optimized AI assistant for natural language map commands.
Dubai Digital Twin
A large-scale digital twin of Downtown Dubai, leveraging Esri and Unreal Engine to create an immersive, real-time 3D environment for urban planning, scenario analysis, and real estate management.
St. Louis Digital Twin
An immersive digital twin project using ArcGIS Maps SDK for Unreal Engine to revitalize the Dr. Martin Luther King Drive corridor in St. Louis, enabling interactive visualization of urban transformations.
Where It All Runs
My public apps, including this site, run on hardware I built and manage myself. Visitors reach them through an encrypted, outbound-only Cloudflare Tunnel.
Cloudflare
DNS, TLS, edge cache, outbound tunnel
Dual-WAN router
Two 1 Gbps ISPs, automatic failover, VLAN segmentation
Hyper-V host
Caddy front door, dev machine, RTX 3090 + 3070 for local AI models and video transcoding
Production VM
Public apps in Docker, own Caddy, deploy agent
Infrastructure VM
Pi-hole, Authelia SSO, Uptime Kuma, backups
Media VM
Plex, kept apart from the public apps
Games VM
Multiple game servers hosted
- Redundant internet: two ISPs, automatic failover
- Outbound tunnel: survives IP changes and failover
- One VM per role: media and games can’t slow the apps
- Caddy everywhere: public routing and an internal CA
- Private DNS + SSO: Pi-hole and Authelia, remote admin over WireGuard
- Watched and backed up: Uptime Kuma and Backrest