Systems thinker. Software developer. Founder of TechBeat.
Fort Pierce, Florida. I build the software businesses run on.
The shift
2012
I spent fourteen years making sure other people’s software would not fail. Then I started building the software.
The difference
The tools are real. Somebody with no technical background can describe a site to an AI on Friday and have it online by Monday. I have done it. It is fun.
Then real customers show up. The site slows down. A payment fails. A form leaks something it should not. And nobody can explain why, because nobody understood what got built. The tool cannot fix what its owner cannot describe.
I have spent fifteen years starting every day with something broken. That is the whole job when you are the one they call after it fails. Do that long enough and a broken system stops looking like a crisis and starts looking like a starting line. You also learn to see the break coming before it happens.
You cannot prompt your way into that. You have to have lived it.
15+
years as the person called in after software breaks
The order I build in
Scale
Plan for the customers you want, not the ones you have.
Performance
Fast for the tenth user and the ten thousandth.
Security
Protect the data before you collect it.
Function
Then the features, on a foundation that holds them.
Design
So it feels like one product, not a pile of parts.
The journey
Every year on this list added something I still use. The last one is where it all came together.
2012
Tested every core product by hand, then built the first automated regression suite so the team stopped repeating itself.
2013
Moved into business analysis: requirements, workflows, acceptance testing, and translating between clients and developers.
2014
VVitalz
Designed the automation strategy for an entire product line and wrote it in C# and .NET, documented so the team could own it.
2015
Took over scripts from fifteen previous engineers, upgraded the tooling, and rebuilt them into data-driven frameworks that verified every new release.
2019
Load-tested enterprise applications and traced the bottlenecks. This is where scale stopped being a theory.
2019
Started teaching engineers automation through courses, video, and a community. It became a company I still run.
2020
ATAgileThought
Co-built a UI and API testing framework, trained teams on Agile, and ran the delivery boards that kept projects honest.
2021
Automated testing for healthcare systems under strict data rules, with reporting that gave leaders real evidence before a release.
The generative AI era
2022
ChatGPT
GitHub Copilot
Bolt
ReplitChatGPT launched in November 2022. I put it to work immediately: writing tests, analyzing results, then building the first agents that did the work themselves.
2024
VS Code
Cursor
Claude
PlaywrightMoved a company’s entire automation program onto a modern framework, built AI products for hiring and fraud detection, and trained two manual teams to automate.
2025
Claude Code
Gemini CLI
Codex
Cloudflare
Supabase
Azure AIEarned the Azure AI Engineer certification and launched AgentFoundry, Business Leaders Alliance, and Harbor Event Center: databases, payments, AI, and deployment, end to end.
Everything, together
2026
Every skill from the last fourteen years in one person: the business need, the data, the code, the proof, the launch, and the AI. That is what I bring to a project now.
Azure AI Engineer Associate
Microsoft, 2025
B.B.A., Business Administration
Eckerd College, 2016
TestComplete and ReadyAPI certification
SmartBear
Test Studio certification
Telerik
Tosca certification
Tricentis
How I work
Every project is one system. What the business needs, the data behind it, and the road it takes to reach a customer.
My job is to make those pieces fit, and then prove they hold.
I spent a career on the proving part. Now I build the whole thing.
Three brains
Claude Code
Gemini CLI
ChatGPT CodexI do not trust one AI with anything that matters. Claude, Gemini, and OpenAI each get the work they are best at, and each one checks the others before it ships. Three opinions beat one, especially when the one is confident.
Build
TypeScript
Strict, everywhere.
Next.js
App Router on every site.
React
Server components first.
Tailwind
Design tokens, not stylesheets.
Drizzle
Typed SQL and migrations.
Node.js
Scripts, pipelines, tooling.
Python
Media and data pipelines.
.NET
A decade of C# test frameworks.
Ship
Cloudflare
Workers, D1, R2, Email, Tunnel.
Supabase
Postgres with RLS and MFA for regulated data.
PostgreSQL
Self-hosted on the home server too.
GitHub
Actions deploy every push.
Docker
Compose on the home server.
Ubuntu
TB-Server, the always-on box.
Stripe
Checkout, subscriptions, webhooks.
Resend
Transactional email.
Twilio
SMS and WhatsApp.
Test
Playwright
The framework I moved a company onto.
Selenium
Ten years of suites.
Tricentis Tosca
Certified. UI and API.
SmartBear
TestComplete and ReadyAPI, certified.
Telerik
Test Studio, certified.
JMeter
Load and performance.
Vitest
Unit tests on every project.
AI
Claude
Claude Code and the API. Brain one.
Gemini
Gemini CLI and image generation. Brain two.
OpenAI
Codex and GPT. Brain three.
Azure AI
AI Engineer Associate.
Deepgram
Live transcription in AgentFoundry.
ElevenLabs
Voice for course production.
AssemblyAI
Batch transcription.
Firecrawl
Web data for research.
fal.ai
Image and video models.
Run the business
Microsoft 365
Graph API: calendar, mail, Teams.
Slack
Client rooms and bots.
Make
Automation between everything.
Notion
Docs and planning.
Buffer
Social scheduling.
Canva
Client graphics.
OBS
Recording.
DaVinci Resolve
Editing.
Home Assistant
The studio lights, honestly.
logo.dev
Every logo on this page.
Featured work
A white-label platform for life and annuity insurance agencies and their agents.
A membership platform connecting local business owners through industry alliances.
A venue rental site with five bookable spaces and online checkout.
TechBeat
I started TechBeat in 2019 to teach engineers automation. It turned into a software company. Today TechBeat Solutions builds custom platforms for businesses that have outgrown templates, and TechBeat Daily is where people learn to build with AI.
Build
Custom websites, business platforms, and AI features for companies that deserve their own software.
techbeatsolutions.comCommunity
Videos, courses, and a community for people learning automation and AI.
techbeatdaily.comBeyond the code
I am married to Nicole, who runs her own business and keeps me honest about what a real customer needs.
We live in Fort Pierce, on the Treasure Coast. When I am not building, I am in the workshop, on the water, or at church with family.
What I stand on
My faith. It is the foundation under all of this, and it is where the honesty comes from. So I am going to be as direct with you as I am with everyone else.
I am a follower of Jesus. That is not a line for the website; it is the reason the rest of it exists. Before any hard conversation, with a client, a teammate, or my wife, I have a conversation with God first. It is where I check my motives before I hand somebody my words.
Here is what fifteen years of starting with broken taught me: the truth about a broken thing is cheapest early. So you will get straight answers from me. If your plan will not hold up at scale, I will say so before you pay for it, not after. I would rather lose a project than sell you one that falls over.
Peace is not the absence of storms, but God’s presence in the midst of the storm.
I wrote a book about this
When to walk through it. When to walk away.
It is about learning to read fear correctly. Some fear is protecting you. Some fear is keeping you stuck. Most people never learn to tell the two apart, and I spent years confusing them myself. The book is what I figured out, told through the only world I really know: fixing broken things.
Finished in draft. Not yet published.
Start with broken.
Broken is not a crisis. It is the starting line. What broke, why did it break, and what is the path to fixing it.
A failing system is not a disaster to me. It is Monday.
Ready enough beats perfect.
Every product ever shipped had known issues. Quality is a process, not a finish line.
I launch what is ready, measure what is real, and keep improving out in the open.
Two questions.
Can this be undone? Then fear is lying to you. Act. Will this hand somebody something I cannot take back? Then slow down and get it right.
Bold in the sandbox. Careful with people, and with anything that is not mine to break.
Honesty comes with awareness.
“I was just being honest” is one of the most dangerous phrases in the language. Words live in other people. You do not get them back.
I say the hard thing. I also think about what it will do once it is out of my mouth.
Ask Jacob
This is an AI version of me. It answers from notes I wrote about my work, my story, and the book. Good for the quick questions. For the real conversation, use the form below.
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I read every message myself. You will hear back from my TechBeat inbox, usually within a business day.
Email mejacob.putnam@techbeatsolutions.com
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