Lukas Carelsen

Lukas Carelsen

Product engineer. I ship with AI.

Placeholder intro: two lines on building whole products solo, fast, and why that's the point.

Achievement unlocked

Logbook 0/54

  1. First touchdownLand the ship anywhere on the page
  2. Secret unlockedWin the landing game (press L)
  3. Meteor dodgerBeat Level 2, the meteorites
  4. RickrolledWin the prize for winning the mini-gameSecret achievement
  5. Double rickrolledWatch the real prize for beating Level 2Secret achievement
  6. Crash test dummyCrash the ship in the game
  7. Lost in spaceDrift off the bottom of the screen
  8. Knock knockLand on the black site
  9. Cleared for entryEarn the black site’s clearance
  10. Inside the black siteOpen the black site’s doors
  11. Twin lasersGet the ship’s first upgrade
  12. Mega laserGet the ship’s second upgrade
  13. Lock-on turretAiring’s first anti-air upgrade
  14. Lock missilesAiring’s second anti-air upgrade
  15. Torpedo hatchSteelhead’s first underwater upgrade
  16. Sonar cannonSteelhead’s second underwater upgrade
  17. Drone swarmCapital Copilot’s first anti-kaiju upgrade
  18. Mech frameCapital Copilot’s second anti-kaiju upgrade
  19. Ice armourTrade blue crystals at STN-2
  20. Rose shieldTrade pink crystals at STN-2
  21. Saved by the shieldLet the shield take a meteorite
  22. ClangLet the armour take a hit
  23. First crystalMine a crystal from STN-2
  24. First bloodBeat the creatures on a world
  25. Flag plantedConquer a world
  26. Four worldsConquer every world
  27. Base onlineBring a world’s base online
  28. Civilization IIA town reaches Era I
  29. Civilization IIIA town reaches Era II
  30. Civilization IVA town reaches Era III
  31. Civilization VReach Era IV with a neighbouring world
  32. Galactic festivalGet every town to Era II
  33. Station upgradeFinish a station’s first upgrade
  34. Joint ventureTwo worlds finish an advanced upgrade
  35. MaydaySave the tug crew at STN-1
  36. Cut looseCatch the drifting spacewalker at STN-3
  37. SOS receivedPick up the signal from Jupiter
  38. Astronaut rescuedAnswer the SOS
  39. Into the giantFly into the gas giant
  40. Instrument makerBuild an instrument at the outpost
  41. Full kitBuild all eight outpost instruments
  42. Gate 1 · WebBuild Web’s launch pad
  43. Gate 2 · AppsBuild Apps’ space elevator
  44. Gate 3 · AIBuild AI’s elevator and mission control
  45. All gates openOpen Web, Apps and AI
  46. LiftoffLaunch a rocket from the spaceport
  47. SnapshotLand on a survey photo and sit still
  48. Off and on againFix the broken ad sat over Airing
  49. World 1 surveyedPhotograph every frame on CC-1, Capital Copilot
  50. World 2 surveyedPhotograph every frame on NR-2, NoRespawn
  51. World 3 surveyedPhotograph every frame on AR-3, Airing
  52. World 4 surveyedPhotograph every frame on SH-4, Steelhead
  53. CartographerPhotograph every frame on every world
  54. Eyes onlyPhotograph a classified frameSecret achievement

Now building

Capital Copilot

World 01 · Live

Your daily brief, built for exactly you: AI podcasts, news and a market terminal. I run the frontend.

  • Angular 21
  • GraphQL
  • SSR
Land↓Visit the site

NoRespawn

World 02 · Beta soon

Memento mori: remember that you will die. Your life as a health bar, draining in front of your eyes.

  • SwiftUI
  • WidgetKit
Embark expedition→

Airing

World 03 · Public beta

Placeholder: know when your shows are airing. One line on what it does.

  • Expo
  • React Native
  • Convex
Tune in↓Join the beta

Steelhead

World 04 · ███████

An AI assistant for a ████ market. Hand-coded end to end, and now going agentic.

  • React Native
  • OpenAI Realtime
  • Fastify
Request clearance↓

How I work

I build the whole thing. Then I keep building on it.

A product isn't just an app. It's research, design, the build, testing, the launch, the posts, and listening to the people who use it. I do every part of it, so nothing gets lost between teams.

Mission plan · year oneThe old wayWith me
Research
Design
Build the appwith AI
6+ months of build
Test
Social & marketing
Learn from users
Try new ideas
No time left
Launchthen update
v1v2v3v4v5v6v7v8v9v10v11

One long build, one launch, and by the time real users speak up, the budget's gone.The first build takes a week, not months. It's live in week 4, and the rest of the year goes into updates, testing with real people, and trying the ideas that would never have made the cut.

Time on the first build
6+ months1 week
First launch
Month 11Week 4
Versions in year one
111
New ideas tried
0∞
  1. One captain, a crew of agents. Research, design, the app, the backend, the launch, the store pages, the posts. A swarm of AI agents does the work, and I'm at the helm steering all of it. No hand-offs, no waiting on another team.
  2. The build got small. AI writes the code; I make the calls. What took a team half a year takes me weeks.
  3. So we get to play. The time we save goes into trying things: ship it, watch real people use it, keep what works, bin what doesn't, go again.

Experience · Legacy system

13 years the hard way. Retired.

Top secret // declassifiedFile LGCY-13Y
Subject
L. Carelsen
In service
2012 — 2025
Contents
36 technologies
Clearance
Revoked: AI knows it all

  1. Mobile

    • React Native
    • Expo
    • React Navigation
    • Native modules
    • Swift bridges
    • iOS
    • Android

    Years learning the quirks of two platforms at once. An agent reads the docs in seconds.

  2. Languages

    • TypeScript
    • JavaScript
    • Node.js
    • Swift
    • Objective-C

    Every keyword memorised. Every semicolon typed by hand. AI types faster and never forgets an import.

  3. State & data

    • Redux
    • Zustand
    • React Hook Form
    • Async Storage
    • Prisma
    • Postgres

    Boilerplate by the metre. Generated now, in one prompt.

  4. Release

    • Fastlane
    • GitHub Actions
    • TestFlight
    • Play Store
    • Code signing
    • Provisioning profiles

    Provisioning profiles: the reason for the grey hair. Scripted by an agent now.

  5. Chain, AI & voice

    • Solana
    • Web3.js
    • Ethers.js
    • QR signing
    • Twilio
    • Hume AI
    • On-device LLM

    Multisig wallets, voice agents, an offline LLM. Hard-won, documented to death. The model has read all of it.

  6. Before all that

    • Cocos2d
    • Unity
    • Shaders
    • Xcode
    • Android Studio

    A game stuck at 4 FPS, fixed one shader at a time, at 2 a.m. by hand.

Recovered from the wreck

AI knows every tool above. What it doesn't have is 13 years of watching software live and die:

  • The whole life cycle. Idea, prototype, the ugly middle, release, maintenance, the rewrite.
  • Release trains. App Store rejections, code signing, weekly builds to ~100 TestFlight testers.
  • Pressure. Debugging a live multisig wallet in a hotel room at Consensus, with the demo happening downstairs.
  • Taste. Architecture the next developer can walk into without a map.

That's what I point the AI at.

Full file: the CV (PDF) →

BS-13 · Classified

Restricted

Authorised personnel only. Behind these doors: the file on 13 years of the old way.

Clearance required

  • Weapons: 0 of 2 Lose to the creatures on a project card, then let the ship refit at STN-1.
  • Secrets: 0 of 2 Press L, or land on the pad and take the dare.
AI knows the syntax. I know how software ships. That's the solution →

Solutions

Three ways to launch. Pick yours.

Boarding passMission 01 · First class
FromYOUYour idea
ToWEBAny browser

Websites

From a static page to something people play with, like this one.

  • Landing pages
  • Full web apps
  • Interactive builds
  • Astro
  • React
  • Next.js
  • + whatever you want− show less

    Your stack, your call. Any of these, or whatever you already run:

    • Vue
    • Nuxt
    • Svelte
    • SvelteKit
    • Angular
    • Remix
    • SolidJS
    • Qwik
    • TypeScript
    • Tailwind
    • Three.js
    • WebGL
    • Node.js
    • Bun
    • Deno
    • Hono
    • Express
    • NestJS
    • Django
    • Rails
    • Laravel
    • GraphQL
    • Postgres
    • Supabase
    • Firebase
    • Convex
    • Prisma
    • Drizzle
    • WordPress
    • Webflow
    • Shopify
    • Stripe
    • Cloudflare
    • Vercel
    • Netlify
    • AWS
Flight
CL 01
Seat
1A
ETA
1 week
Gate
hi@carelsen.dev
Book this mission →
Boarding passMission 02 · First class
FromYOUYour idea
ToAPPAny device

Apps

Phones, watches, TVs, cars, smart homes. Any device, any of it.

  • Phones, tablets, watches
  • TV, car, smart home
  • Shipped to every store
  • React Native
  • Expo
  • SwiftUI
  • + whatever you want− show less

    Your stack, your call. Any of these, or whatever you already run:

    • Swift
    • Kotlin
    • Jetpack Compose
    • Flutter
    • UIKit
    • WidgetKit
    • Live Activities
    • App Intents
    • Apple Watch
    • Wear OS
    • Galaxy Watch
    • Garmin
    • Fitbit
    • iPad
    • Mac
    • visionOS
    • Apple TV
    • Android TV
    • Samsung Tizen
    • CarPlay
    • Android Auto
    • HomeKit
    • Matter
    • Homey
    • Home Assistant
    • SmartThings
    • Google Home
    • Alexa
    • Bluetooth devices
    • Push notifications
    • In-app purchases
    • RevenueCat
    • Offline sync
    • Firebase
    • Supabase
    • Convex
    • EAS
    • Fastlane
    • TestFlight
    • Tauri
    • Electron
Flight
CL 02
Seat
1B
ETA
1 month
Gate
hi@carelsen.dev
Book this mission →
Boarding passMission 03 · First class
FromYOUYour idea
ToAIYour dev team

AI consulting

Get your developers, and your whole team, shipping with AI agents.

  • Devs on coding agents
  • Agentic team workflows
  • Pairing and workshops
  • Claude Code
  • Agents
  • Team setup
  • + whatever you want− show less

    Your stack, your call. Any of these, or whatever you already run:

    • Codex
    • Cursor
    • GitHub Copilot
    • Gemini CLI
    • Windsurf
    • Aider
    • Cline
    • Hermes Agent
    • Claude Agent SDK
    • OpenAI Agents SDK
    • MCP servers
    • Subagents
    • Skills and hooks
    • LangGraph
    • CrewAI
    • n8n
    • Ollama
    • Local models
    • Claude
    • GPT
    • Gemini
    • Llama
    • Mistral
    • DeepSeek
    • Qwen
    • RAG
    • Evals
    • Agents in CI
    • AI code review
Flight
CL 03
Seat
1C
ETA
1 day
Gate
hi@carelsen.dev
Book this mission →

Not sure which? Tell me what you’re building →

Pricing

GoodBuilt right, looks right.

FastShipped this month, not next year.

CheapDoesn't need an agency budget.

Hire
LukasOverride. All three.

Expensive. That's the agency route. (not cheap)

Same rate, finished sooner: 3 months of work done in 1.

Ask for a quote →

*Rates never discounted. Scope can move; quality can’t. · Wiring rated for two lamps. · Landing on switches permitted. · Pick any two. Or don’t. · Offer valid in this galaxy. ·

Landing zoneTouchdown

Hire me

hi@carelsen.dev
hi@carelsen.dev

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