About
Still building, after all this time.
I'm Hank Marquardt: a software engineer with a background in web development and data engineering, currently deep in AI both professionally and personally.
Background
I came up through web development, spent a long stretch in data engineering, and now work across AI and software. The through-line is the same in all three: make the system understandable to the person who inherits it, including future me.
The part of technology I care about is the moment a tool stops being a demo and starts being something a person can rely on — which is usually where the honest engineering, and the honest writing, begins.
Interests
Outside of work: the outdoors, birds, mushrooms, and long drives on roads that don't necessarily go anywhere. Several of the experiments on this site came directly out of those habits — a sky guide, a road survey tool, a mushroom forecast.
I also make music with AI tools in the loop, which turned into Earwurmz of Whimsy. It is not a business, a personal brand, or a productivity system. It's the part of the workshop that makes noise.
How I work
- Evidence before adjectives. If a project can't show something, it says so. That applies to forecasts, launch schedules, access research, and this page.
- Ownership matters. Code, accounts, and data should be handed over in a state the next person can actually use.
- Boring infrastructure, interesting problems. Static files, semantic HTML, and a small build are usually enough. Complexity should be earned.
- Uncertainty is information. A tool that marks what it doesn't know is more useful than one that hides the gap behind a number.
Contact
The best way to reach me is email: hank@aismallbizguru.com. Project inquiries are welcome through Turkey Vulture Software. For everything else, GitHub, Substack, and YouTube are where I show up.
Colophon
This is a static site. Python renders Markdown notes and HTML at build time; Cloudflare Workers serves the files. There is no database, no CMS, no client framework, no analytics, and no JavaScript at all. The RSS feed is generated from the same note files, and drafts never reach the build.