Steve O'Brien Technical founder Fractional CTO AI systems architect
Building what hasn’t been built yet.
I've spent two decades building real-world software systems. Today I turn ambitious, ambiguous ideas into practical AI systems—combining rapid prototyping with insights from artificial and biological intelligence, and architecture that can scale when the evidence demands it.
Based in Bristol, working with founders and teams on difficult technology and product challenges.
Builder and founder
Strategy grounded in doing the work.
I founded Newicon and spent 18 years building the company to £1.5m turnover alongside a £0.5m digital marketing business that became Flex Digital. I led as CEO and CTO while staying close to architecture, software, product, clients, and delivery through to Newicon’s acquisition in 2025.
I have built capable application frameworks from scratch, including systems that powered regulated financial services products such as the Hartley pension portal. My preferred stacks today are Vue with Node.js and Fastify, or Laravel for PHP, backed by PostgreSQL or MariaDB—but the durable advantage is a command of fundamentals, not attachment to a particular framework.
How I work
From ambiguity to something real.
01
Build what is new
I excel at rapidly prototyping ideas that have not been done before, finding the working shape of a product while the problem is still ambiguous.
02
Make it testable now
I turn difficult, uncertain work into something people can use, learn from, and improve—often moving from a big idea to what we can genuinely ship next week.
03
Design for what comes next
I choose the simplest architecture that is right for today while preserving a clear path to the resilience, scale, and operational maturity the product will need tomorrow.
Current work
Systems I’m building now.
AI product · Search intelligence
GrowthScout
An AI-powered platform for turning website and search data into practical content decisions, combining analysis, planning, and intelligent workflows.
Visit GrowthScoutDeveloper platform · Design systems
DOM Studio
A code-first UI system for Vue and Web Components, designed to give people and AI agents a shared, dependable contract for building interfaces.
Visit DOM StudioResearch and development
Practical AI systems
Building application frameworks, agent runtimes, real-time collaborative tools, and systems informed by how artificial and biological intelligence learn.
Explore projectsSelected writing
Thinking in public.
Defining intelligence
Why intelligence remains difficult to define—and why the definition matters as we build increasingly capable machines.
Should you build an LLM from scratch?
Why most teams should start with hosted models, owned evaluation data, and open-weight experiments before training from scratch.
Work together
Have something difficult to build?
I work with founders and teams who need experienced technical leadership and someone ready to get close to the product and code.