Joe Draper

AI Engineer | Builder | Advisor

Joe Draper

About

I'm a self-taught applied AI engineer with a full-stack bias, focused on building useful agentic systems, strong harnesses, and products that actually hold up in the real world.

Before this, I spent five years in technical recruitment across data science and machine learning. It gave me a strong commercial instinct, and a feel for how technical teams actually operate. Eventually, I got too interested in the work itself and taught myself to build.

I was a successful esports pro in a previous life, winning my first sponsorship at 13. I've always had a bit of an internet-hustler streak - from selling iPhone jailbreaks in school, to paying for uni with affiliate commissions - I've tended to look for leverage, inefficiencies, and unusual opportunities rather than following the crowd.

My day-to-day is split between advising and building for a handful of clients, and expanding our Arkwright product suite. Current projects include CallOS, a real-time coaching agent for recruiters, and Metawatch, a CLI tool for giving LLMs token-optimised context on the current developer tooling landscape.

Outside of work, I enjoy an odd mix of reading, cars, semiconductors, geopolitics, investing, smart home tinkering, amateur hi-fi, baking, and Dota.

Key Capabilities

  • Applied AIFrom harness engineering to fine-tuning, I've built up a broad applied AI skill set through self-directed learning and hands-on experimentation.
  • Full-Stack Product EngineeringI combine product thinking, strong UX instincts, robust engineering, and consultative sales skills to deliver complete solutions end to end.
  • Agentic EngineeringI specialise in agentic engineering, using rigorous, opinionated workflows to build production-ready software quickly and reliably.
  • Builder ↔ Buyer TranslationI'm comfortable speaking with everyone from engineers to founders to the C-suite. Building trust with both technical and non-technical stakeholders is one of my core strengths.

Some Traits

  • I don't just ship code; I care if the product actually solves the business problem.
  • Very comfortable in ambiguous, fast-paced, low-structure environments.
  • Conscious of where to move fast, and where to be careful and deliberate.
  • Ambitious, opinionated, and obsessed with the finer details.
  • Deeply internet-native - I 'get' the culture and keep a close eye on the frontier.
  • Strong opinions, weakly held. I care about getting it right, not being right.

Current Projects

All Projects →

Writing

Contact

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