GAIA Flash codified the discipline Flash teams lacked. GAIA does the same for Claude-native development.
- 2024–2025
Principal Frontend Engineer, Trek10
Led six engineers rebuilding a financial services platform. Modernized the codebase from React 15 to React 19.
- 2020–2023
Lead React Engineer, American Express
Built the internal dining concierge platform used by Amex teams worldwide. Led the mobile rebuild of Pocket Concierge for Japan.
- 2016–2017
Director of Engineering, PlayBrain
Architected a serverless multilingual publishing platform and a real-time esports tournament system. Hired and led the engineering team.
- 2012–2015
Founder, Plug DJ
Social music platform. 6M registered users, 1M monthly actives. Raised $2.5M led by Javelin Venture Partners. Acquired.
- DiagnoseAudit$5,000
- RemediateMigration$18,000/sprint
- GreenfieldFoundation$25,000
- SustainRetainerFrom $5,000/mo
Your migration roadmap, before you commit to anything else
A read-only review of your existing codebase (whether it's GAIA or not). Delivers a written report and a prioritized migration roadmap you can act on immediately, with or without continuing.
- Deep review of one repo against GAIA conventions. Lint posture, agentic-pattern gaps, AI-debt signals from recent PRs, existing CLAUDE.md and rules where present.
- A 15 to 25 page written report: what’s working, what’s costing you, and the prioritized migration roadmap.
- The migration roadmap is the core deliverable: an ordered list of refactors with effort and blast-radius estimates. The backlog your Migration Sprints burn down. Yours to keep regardless of next steps.
- 20-minute recorded walkthrough video.
- Optional 30-minute Q&A call within 2 weeks.
AI sprawl cleaned up, sprint by sprint
Hands-on refactor of your codebase, chunked into 2-week sprints. Commit one sprint at a time. Most migrations run 2 to 4. Each sprint delivers visible, reviewable results before you decide whether to continue.
AI-generated patterns layered on top of legacy ones. Conventions drift. Tests skipped. Token costs ballooning. Nothing enforced at write-time.
Patterns consolidated. Rules, hooks, and skills enforce them at the keystroke. PR reviews stop catching the same five things. The repo stops fighting itself.
- Per sprint: hands-on refactor of the top roadmap items that fit the budget. Pattern consolidation, AI-debt cleanup, type tightening.
- GAIA installed or extended on the code the sprint touches. Rules, hooks, skills, wiki templates.
- Commit-by-commit migration log. Every change visible and reviewable.
- Short "what changed / what to watch" note after each sprint.
- Cumulative remediation report that grows across sprints. The full before/after catalog.
- 30 days of post-delivery email support per sprint.
- Optional 30-minute handoff call within 2 weeks of sprint delivery.
Full GAIA setup, done with you
The greenfield path for teams starting a new Claude-native project. GAIA set up and tuned to your stack alongside your team, so the discipline is in place before the first feature ships.
- Week 1
Discovery and install. GAIA rules, hooks, skills, and wiki templates wired to your stack.
- Week 2
Integration with your existing tooling. Mid-foundation demo and live working sessions.
- Handoff
Recorded handoff training, customized runbook delivered, 30 days of email support starts.
- GAIA installed and customized for your repo. Rules, hooks, skills, wiki templates matched to your stack.
- Integration with your existing tooling (Sentry, Linear, etc.).
- Two to three live sessions. Kickoff, mid-foundation demo, handoff training. All recorded.
- Written runbook customized to you.
- 30 days of post-delivery email support.
Ongoing oversight as the codebase grows
Once the cleanup or the setup is done, GAIA’s gates enforce the rules without anyone watching. The retainer is for the judgment they can’t automate, the edge cases and the roadmap calls.
8 hours per month, basic PR review
15 hours per month, full critical-path PR review
- Async review of critical PRs (5 to 10 per month).
- Weekly 30-minute office hour, live.
- Slack or Discord access with 24-hour response time.
- Quarterly written health-check summary.
- First-look access to GAIA roadmap features.
- 10% discount on additional Migration Sprints or a Foundation engagement.
I had the privilege of managing Steven Sacks, and I can say without hesitation that he is one of the strongest engineering leaders I’ve worked with.
When Steven took ownership of a codebase that had accumulated significant technical debt, he didn’t just stabilize it, he transformed it. He brought a clear-eyed assessment of what needed to change, built team alignment around a path forward, and executed with disciplined velocity. The result was a measurably healthier system and a team that moved faster and with more confidence.
What sets Steven apart is the combination of high standards and high throughput. He holds the bar on code quality without letting it become a bottleneck. He leads engineers by example by writing clean, maintainable code himself while creating a culture where the team does the same.
Any organization looking for an engineering leader who can both raise the bar and ship would be lucky to have Steven.
Steven was hired to fix the fiasco which was the front-end of the project. The front-end was months behind schedule and hardly progressing at all. Steven quickly brought order to chaos, got the front-end moving again.
Curtis JonesPrincipal Engineer, Streamie SecuritySteven brought much-needed stability to our front end through both codebase and process improvements for our restaurant booking platform... features not only released on time, but to a very high level of quality every time.
Chris HutchinsonSenior Engineering Manager, American ExpressSteven brings a level of rigor to development that is very rare. He approaches his work almost philosophically, working hard to incorporate best practices and logical structure.
Rhett BrownSecurity Consultant, Deja vu Security
Need something outside these engagements? Multi-month builds, custom integrations, or scope I haven’t named here. Engagements start at $5,000.