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Nate

Principal Engineer & Founder, West Fork Digital

Fort Worth, TX · remote-friendly across DFW

10+ years shipping softwareTeams grown 3 → 21+Senior EngineerTech LeadEngineering ManagerFractional CTO

Senior Engineer · Tech Lead · Engineering Manager · Technical PM / Product Owner · Fractional CTO

I'm Nate — the engineer who owns this studio, and the one who'll be on your kickoff call, your build, and your launch. I've spent the last decade shipping software that works, not just software that demos well: marketing sites, e-commerce, mobile apps, internal tools, and — over the last few years — AI automation for real operating businesses.

My path runs from running a 17-engineer server operations department at IONOS, to leading legacy-system modernisation at Fasthosts and AND Digital, to spending three and a half years as the sole engineering leader of a transport-tech startup — building its entire product from nothing. Today I split my time as Tech Lead at Neptune Digital and Technical Lead on a .NET 8 + Azure integration platform at Ghyston, while running West Fork Digital directly for DFW businesses.

I work across the stack because I've had to: TypeScript, React and Next.js, C# and .NET 8, Python, AWS, Azure, GCP, Shopify, and AI integrations built on OpenAI and Anthropic's APIs. I've architected event-driven platforms, modernised £10M+ systems with zero downtime, and grown engineering teams from three people to twenty-one.

Small businesses usually get two bad options: a cheap template site that looks like one, or a big-agency proposal with four layers of account managers and a price built to feed all four. West Fork Digital is the middle — senior-level work, delivered directly, at a price that holds up to arithmetic. When a project needs a skill outside my lane — illustration, video, specialised ad management — I bring in specialists from a network I trust, and I stay accountable for the whole job. One point of contact. No handoffs to strangers.

The name comes from the West Fork of the Trinity River — the water Fort Worth grew up around. It's a reminder of who this studio is for: the contractors, clinics, shops, restaurants, and firms that make this side of the Metroplex run.

Career

Head of Server / Head of SMB Support
IONOS
2015 – 2021
Senior Developer / Deputy Lead
Fasthosts
2021 – 2022
Senior / Lead Engineer
AND Digital
2022
Engineering Manager
Transport-tech startup
2022 – 2025
Tech Lead
Neptune Digital
2026 —
Technical Lead (Contract)
Ghyston
2026 —

Stack

Languages & frontend

TypeScriptReactNext.jsPythonC# / .NET 8Tailwind CSSFlutter

Cloud & data

AWSAzureGCP / FirebasePostgreSQLSnowflakeDockerTerraform

AI & e-commerce

OpenAI & Anthropic APIsRAG / embeddingsAgentic toolingShopify PlusPrestaShop

Leadership

Team building (3 → 21+)Technical strategyStakeholder managementIncident command

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