I build things
from zero to production
and make them last.

Staff-level engineer who prototypes, validates, and ships. Payments infrastructure, distributed systems, and AI-augmented tooling. 15+ years of turning ambiguity into working systems.

Payments & FinTech Distributed Systems AI-Augmented Delivery Event-Driven Architecture 0-to-1 Product Building
James Klipp

Prototype. Validate. Ship.

Zero-to-One Builder

I take vague problems and turn them into production systems. Built an entire claims platform solo in 6 months. Prototyped automated payment processing with Stripe Connect before it became production infrastructure.

Payments & Money Movement

Deep domain expertise in payment orchestration, virtual card execution, ACH/wire settlement, and processor integration. I've worked directly with Stripe, NMI, and Modern Treasury APIs on production payment flows.

AI-Augmented Engineering

I build with AI, not just about AI. Claude Code, Cursor, and Copilot are daily tools. I've built AI-powered template migration, deployment observability platforms, and engineering assistants from scratch.

15+ years shipping production systems
Billions in payment volume supported
50+ applications & platforms shipped
4,500+ CI/CD pipelines under observability

Experience

Senior Solution Architect — Payments AvidXchange · 2021–Present

Prototyped and designed STP automation with Stripe Connect and NMI. Built deployment observability platform, AI-powered tooling, and event delivery framework adopted across teams.

Principal Architect / Lead Engineer Ally Financial · 2017–2021

Built robo-advisor capabilities, portfolio rebalancing rules engine, and Monte Carlo projections. Led investment platform modernization across five teams.

Lead Engineer Cornerstone United · 2016–2017

Solo-built a next-gen claims platform in 6 months. Full stack, WEX payment integration, 30+ concurrent users.

Application Developer Preferred Mutual Insurance · 2010–2016

Built full-stack insurance systems. Digitized paper processes to same-day turnaround. Modernized COBOL to web.

AI Toolkit

OpenAIGPT-4o, Assistants API
Claude CodeAnthropic's agentic CLI
LangChain / LangGraphChains, agents, RAG, graph workflows
CursorAI-first IDE
GitHub CopilotAI pair programming
Microsoft CopilotEnterprise AI integration

I live in AI-first workflows — prototyping, automating, and shipping faster every day.

Beyond the Keyboard

Fitness & Discipline

Powerlifting, basketball, and daily training. Progressive overload applies to engineering too.

Faith & Purpose

Guided by conviction, community, and a desire to build things that matter.

Creator at Heart

Sharing the journey through content, builds, and lessons from the field.