Hire a freelance AI Software Engineer. 100% remote.

Hi, I’m James, an AI software engineer. I turn manual processes and existing software into AI-driven systems that get real results.

I’ve been writing software since 2001, mostly with PHP (I’m a Laravel expert, also specialising in WordPress). Over the last few years my work has shifted: clients don’t just want a website or an app any more, they want the work itself done by software. That’s what an AI software engineer does — and it’s most of what I build now. Apps, systems and software that does the job of many people.

To be clear: I’m not an AI consultant, and I don’t just bolt chatbots onto websites. I’m not delivering strategy decks, roadmap workshops or readiness assessments. I’m a developer and I write code. I take a process your team does by hand, or software that works the old way, and rebuild it as a system that does the work itself – with AI where it genuinely helps, and without AI where it doesn’t.

I first logged onto the web using Netscape Navigator in 1995, and AI today feels every bit as era-defining as that did — except this time I’m not a kid clicking around, I’m building with it and in it. When I first used GPT-3 in 2020, I knew this was transformative, and I’ve been building it into how I work ever since: from helping build one of the first tools to control WordPress with AI via MCP at the CloudFest Hackathon in early 2025, to joining the WordPress Core AI team helping shape AI in software that runs over 40% of the web, to developing my own products with AI — writing the skills and processes that make them reliable enough for real work.

What I can do for your business

Turn manual processes into software

Most businesses have someone copying data between systems, writing the same reports, triaging the same inbox, or posting the same updates every week. I build software that does that work instead. Where an LLM helps — understanding messy input, drafting text, pulling structure out of documents — I use one. If a cron job and a database query do it better, I’ll recommend that. Either way: hours saved, every week.

Build agents that run your operations

Tools like OpenClaw and Hermes let organisations run AI agents that work continuously — handling enquiries, support requests, producing reports, consolidating data, writing content, executing multi-step processes on a schedule. I set these systems up, write the skills and processes they follow, and wire them into your existing tools with cron-scheduled, repeatable tasks. Your business gets a tireless operator; you stay in control of what it’s allowed to do.

Build AI-driven applications on modern stacks

When the right answer is new software, I work as an AI application developer and build it properly: Laravel, Next.js, Python, TypeScript/Node, Electron for desktop, Swift for native — whatever fits the problem. Queues, APIs, vector search and RAG over your own data, all tested and documented. Software any developer can pick up and maintain.

Connect everything with API, MCP and CLI integrations

AI integration is where most of the value hides: making the tools you already have talk to each other and do more. MCP servers so AI tools can work with your systems, API integrations between your app and the models and services it needs, CLI commands that automate developer and business workflows. It’s the unglamorous glue code that makes AI genuinely useful — and some of my favourite work.

AI engineering in real software projects

Some of the projects I’ve shipped. Real projects, real numbers, real improvements to processes:

MCP, API and CLI commands added to an existing app, significantly elevating its AI integration — no rewrite required, saving hundreds of hours of work per week (across 30 staff) in data extraction and analysis.
An automated content creation workflow that grew organic traffic by 125% in 2 months — without producing AI slop. Researched, structured, on-brand content, correct tone of voice; with humans in the loop where it matters.
A pipeline that let a design team turn their Figma designs into working, deployed MVPs — saving 1–2 weeks of dev time per project.
Automated social media scheduling and posting in the brand’s own voice, saving the team 20 hours per week. It sounds like them, because it was built to.
An app that finds UI strings in an app, and translates them into JSON language files; offering localisation in over 100 languages in minutes instead of days of manual and costly translation.
A custom Laravel app that takes a warehouse stock report in Excel and syncs to Shopify every few hours, removing the need for a full time data entry position.
My own open source CLI tool – folder2txt – that converts an entire codebase or directory of text into a single LLM-ready text file, used by developers to add real context into AI tools.

How I work

No slop. Anything customer-facing meets the same quality bar as code I’d write by hand. Every line of code can be explained. If the output isn’t good enough to publish under both our names, it doesn’t ship.
AI where it helps, not everywhere. I’ll happily talk you out of using an LLM when something simpler is faster, cheaper and more reliable. Cron jobs and Python can do more than you think.
Built to be maintained. Proper code — version controlled, tested, documented. Any developer can take over what I build. No lock-in.
I build with AI, too. AI-assisted development has made me significantly faster. You get senior-level work, delivered quicker, with all the systems of checks and protection I have built for my own products.

Technology I work with:

LLM APIs — Anthropic (Claude), OpenAI, Gemma, OpenRouter, HuggingFace and more
Autonomous Agents — OpenClaw, Hermes; your new employee
Skills – Writing processes and flows into easily digestible skills that an LLM can follow
Plugins – Bundled Skills and scripts into an easy installable plugin for all your staff
MCP (Model Context Protocol) — building and integrating MCP servers
Application stacks — Laravel, Next.js, Python, TypeScript/Node, Electron, Swift
Data — Postgres, MySQL, Redis, queues, vector search and RAG
Bots — Slack, Telegram, Discord
CLI tooling — PHP and Node command line tools and automations
Pipelines — content workflows, data extraction, process automation

Why hire a developer when AI writes code?

An LLM works 24/7, never invoices, and maybe your intern can vibe-code a prototype in an afternoon. So why do you need me? It’s a fair question, that is becoming more relevant by the day.

The code was never the hard part. The hard part is “judgement” – knowing what to build, how that reflects against the short and long term goals of the product, department and business, smelling when generated code is subtly wrong, debugging the thing that breaks in production at 2am, and designing software that survives real users and real load.

My judgment comes from twenty-plus years of shipping – and AI makes that judgment more valuable, not less, because someone has to direct all that cheap code and own the result.

Businesses hire me as an AI Software Engineer because:

I have the bit that’s hard to acquire. Anyone can generate code now. But over twenty years of engineering judgment is the part you can’t prompt for – what to build, what to refuse, what will fall over, what won’t blow your budget.
I deliver production, not demos. Full stack, end to end: architecture, testing, deployment, documentation. Things that keep working after the launch is finished.
I think like a business owner. I run my own products and businesses, so I build for outcomes (hours saved, revenue grown) not for technology’s sake.
I’m a remote-first developer from the UK working with agencies and businesses across the globe to enterprise standards.

Before you hire me

My customers are typically SMEs, startups and enterprise clients with a real problem to solve, or agencies who need a senior developer. This is proper software engineering — scoped, built, tested and maintained like any other application, and priced accordingly. Most projects need learning, setup, integration, documentation, training and testing, and are likely to cost £2,000+.

Hire me as your AI Software Engineer

Contact me below with an outline of your problem or needs – what the process or software is, what it costs you today, and what you’d like it to do instead; and I can give you my availability and tell you how I can help.

"*" indicates required fields

Facebook

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

What do you need?*

If you need help with a plugin I made, please go to my dedicated support area for plugins or follow the support details given in the plugin.

What is the website built with?*

Does the WordPress website use any of the following page builders?*

Your project might not be the right fit for me.

Page builders like Elementor, Divi, and WPBakery add unnecessary bloat, slow down websites, and make development harder. I don’t take on small fixes or updates for sites built with them. If you’re open to a full redevelopment (without a page builder), I’d be happy to talk (change your option above). Otherwise, thanks for considering me and best of luck with your project.

For small fixes, updating content, installing themes/plugins, etc, I often recommend WP Buffs to clients. They offer an all-in-one fixed fee service, so is great for small jobs, especially when using page builders.

What’s the web address of the website you’d like me to work on?*

What's your budget?*

This could be per project, per month or per year. Software can have almost unlimited features and complexity. Knowing your budget helps me shape a realistic plan for what can be built and how quickly. I’m an enterprise-level developer — I’m not the cheapest option, but I focus on delivering long-term, high-quality solutions. Your budget won’t change my rate, but it will help me design the best approach for your goals.

Tell me more about what you need*

Your Name*

Your Email*