Ricardo Pietroforte
Founder-Engineer & Chief AI Officer
I operate as a one-person product organization, building AI ecosystems from vision to production.
The Journey
From travel app to AI ecosystem
The Beginning
PCX-Travellers began as a simple travel planning app. Excel upload → AI-enriched route with music, movies, POIs.
Pattern Recognition
I realized the pattern was repeatable across domains: Travel needs context. Career needs context. Finance needs context. All can benefit from contextual AI intelligence.
The Evolution
Expanded to PCX-Career (job intelligence), PriceX (price checking), Dollar Hunt (financial leaks), and PromptOps (AI management). 7 apps, 5 microservices, one unified vision.
The Product Organization
What started as a solo project became a full product organization— with me playing every role from CEO to DevOps engineer. Now ready for team expansion and fundraising.
"What started as a travel app became a $35M+ AI ecosystem"
I didn't just build features. I architected a complete business— proving I can operate at the CTO/VP Engineering/Chief AI Officer level.
The One-Person Product Organization
As a solo founder-engineer, I simultaneously play 8 corporate roles to build and operate the PCX ecosystem.
This demonstrates executive capability and readiness for CTO, VP Engineering, or Chief AI Officer roles.
The Visionary
CEO / Product Owner
Defines PCX's purpose, value proposition, and long-term impact.
The System Architect
CTO / Principal Engineer
Designed the ecosystem structure: 7 apps + 5 services with clean APIs.
The Builder
Full-Stack Developer
Ships features across Python, Node.js, React, TypeScript stack.
The Operator
DevOps / Platform Engineer
Manages Render/Vercel deployments, CI/CD, multi-environment setup.
The Strategist
Product Manager
Prioritizes features, defines MVPs, refines user journeys.
The Storyteller
Marketing / Brand Director
Crafts narratives for users, investors, and partners.
The Financial Guardian
CFO / Business Analyst
Monitors cloud costs, API usage, infrastructure ROI.
The AI Innovator
Chief AI Officer
Designs agentic systems, multi-model orchestration, AI strategy.
Most engineers: "I built some apps"
Me: "I operate as a complete tech organization"
AI Platform Portfolio
5 production platforms built in 5 months. Live and fully operational.
RowNorth Travellers
AI-Powered Travel Planning Platform
Market Value: $3-8M
Multi-API orchestration platform with intelligent model routing. Turn Excel into enriched trip itineraries with music, movies, books, and POI discovery.
- ✓Excel-to-enrichment pipeline (60 seconds)
- ✓Multi-API orchestration (Google Places, Spotify, TMDB, Books)
- ✓Intelligent AI router (90% cost reduction)
PriceX
Voice Price Intelligence Platform
Market Value: $1-3M
Voice-enabled price checking with seasonal analysis and geospatial search. Never overpay for groceries again.
- ✓Voice price check (5 seconds vs 15 min manual)
- ✓Seasonal intelligence (historical trends)
- ✓Location-aware (geospatial search)
Dollar Hunt
Financial Leak Detection Platform
Market Value: $2-5M
Plaid-integrated financial leak detection. Find forgotten subscriptions and hidden fees automatically.
- ✓Bank-level security (OAuth, encrypted tokens)
- ✓Auto-sync transactions daily
- ✓AI leak detection (subscriptions, fees, duplicates)
PromptOps
AI Prompt Management Platform
Market Value: $500K-1M
Version control and A/B testing for AI prompts. Manage prompts like code, because they are code.
- ✓Prompt version control
- ✓A/B testing framework
- ✓Cost & performance analytics
CX Demo Hub
Interactive Enterprise CX Simulators
Market Value: $500K+
Live demos showcasing Salesforce AgentForce, Emarsys campaigns, and AI sentiment analysis. Built for technical interviews and enterprise proof-of-concepts.
- ✓Salesforce AgentForce integration
- ✓Emarsys campaign triggers
- ✓AI sentiment classification
The PCX Ecosystem
7 Apps • 5 Services • 15+ APIs • One Vision
🎨 Frontends
Hosted on Vercel
RowNorth Travellers
Travel intelligence
PCX-Career
Agentic career AI
PriceX
Voice price intel
Dollar Hunt
Financial leaks
PromptOps UI
Prompt management
Articles
Content hub
Demos
Showcase
⚙️ Services
Hosted on Render
Travellers API
Python/FastAPI
Career API
Python/FastAPI
PriceX API
Python/FastAPI
Dollar Hunt API
Python/FastAPI
PromptOps API
Python/FastAPI
🏗️ Infrastructure
The foundation
PostgreSQL
5 databases, 250+ tables
Cloudflare R2
CDN for media assets
Multi-LLM
OpenAI + Anthropic + Google
15+ APIs
Plaid, Spotify, TMDB, Places
CI/CD
Automated deployments
Architecture Flow
Every component architected, built, and deployed by one person.
Monthly Infrastructure Cost: $500
90% savings through intelligent AI routing and cost optimization
Beyond Code: Strategic AI Frameworks
Building apps is one thing. Architecting strategic frameworks is another.
Three Operating Modes
Adaptive AI strategies for different company maturity levels
- ENABLE:Compliance-first for regulated companies (AbbVie, Baxter)
- ACCELERATE:MLOps at scale for mature enterprises (Abbott, Medtronic)
- EXPERIMENT:Rapid innovation for startups (Solventum, GE Healthcare)
Persona Intelligence
Multi-layer persona detection and adaptation
- ✓Travel Personas: 6 archetypes with AI detection
- ✓Professional Personas: Dynamic positioning by company culture
- ✓Meta-Personas: 8 roles in product organization
Agentic Architecture
Five Seas multi-agent orchestration system
- •Resume Agent, Dialog Agent, Research Agent
- •Skillmap Agent, Mindful Agent
- •Meta-Orchestrator for unified reasoning
These frameworks demonstrate director-level thinking—
not just technical implementation, but strategic AI architecture for business transformation.
Agentic AI Architecture
I don't just build features—I architect multi-agent systems with autonomous reasoning and orchestration.
🌊 Five Seas Agentic System
PCX-Career: Multi-agent orchestration for career intelligence
Resume Agent
Dynamic resume generation with fit scoring
- • Multi-model validation
- • ATS optimization
- • Persona-based tailoring
Dialog Agent
Interview preparation and practice
- • Interview simulation
- • Real-time mode detection
- • Adaptive talk tracks
Research Agent
Company intelligence and culture fit
- • Culture detection (Enable/Accelerate/Experiment)
- • Competitive intelligence
- • Industry trends analysis
Skillmap Agent
Skills gap analysis and learning roadmaps
- • Gap identification
- • Learning path generation
- • Certification recommendations
Mindful Agent
Reflection and narrative crafting
- • Reflective journaling prompts
- • Sentiment tracking
- • Pattern recognition
Meta-Orchestrator
Unified consciousness and cross-agent reasoning
- • Context management across all agents
- • Convergence scoring (5 dimensions)
- • Temporal awareness
Architecture Pattern: Each agent operates autonomously while the Meta-Orchestrator manages unified context and cross-sea reasoning—enabling emergent intelligence beyond individual agent capabilities.
Auto Company Culture Detection
AI automatically classifies companies into operating modes and adapts positioning
ENABLE Mode
Detects regulated companies → Emphasizes compliance, validation, audit readiness
ACCELERATE Mode
Detects mature enterprises → Emphasizes MLOps, scaling, integration
EXPERIMENT Mode
Detects startups/innovative companies → Emphasizes rapid prototyping, innovation
Ensemble AI Orchestration
Multi-model validation with intelligent routing and cost optimization
✓3-Model Consensus
OpenAI GPT-4 + Anthropic Claude + Google Gemini working together
✓Validation-Driven Refinement
Anti-hallucination system with cross-model validation
✓Intelligent Model Routing
90% cost reduction through smart task-to-model assignment
This is Chief AI Officer-level architecture
Not just using AI APIs—building agentic systems with autonomous reasoning, context awareness, and emergent intelligence.
Technical Expertise
Enterprise architecture meets modern AI/ML
AI/ML Frameworks & Tools
Core Frameworks
- →TensorFlow
- →PyTorch
- →Scikit-learn
- →Hugging Face Transformers
Agentic AI
- →LangChain
- →LlamaIndex
- →CrewAI, ReAct patterns
MLOps & Cloud Platforms
MLOps
- →Databricks + MLflow
- →Azure ML
- →AWS SageMaker, Kubeflow
- →Kubernetes, Docker, Airflow
Vector DBs
- →Pinecone, pgvector, Weaviate
Full-Stack & Data Engineering
Development
- →Python: FastAPI, Pandas, NumPy
- →Next.js 14, React, TypeScript
- →PostgreSQL, SQL (50+ tables/app)
Data Platforms
- →Spark, Snowflake, Databricks SQL
- →Power BI, Tableau, Looker
About Ricardo
I'm a Founder-Engineer and AI Systems Architect with a unique combination:
Enterprise experience at Deloitte, Accenture, Corevist— building SAP Commerce platforms for Fortune 500 clients, leading $2M-$10M budgets, managing teams of 10-50+ people, delivering $15M+ ROI.
Startup execution building the PCX ecosystem— 7 production apps, 5 microservices, 15+ API integrations. Solo founder playing CEO, CTO, Developer, DevOps, Product, Marketing, CFO, and Chief AI Officer.
This combination is rare:
- Enterprise discipline meets startup velocity
- Strategic frameworks meets hands-on execution
- AI theory meets production systems
I know what scales to millions of users—I've built it twice. Once in legacy SAP systems. Now in modern AI platforms.
Need AI Architecture Help?
I offer fractional CTO/Chief AI Officer services and project-based AI development.
If you're adding AI features to your product and need someone who's built 5 production systems, let's talk.
Fractional CAI
$15K-30K/month retainer
10-20 hours/week + equity
Project-Based
$50K-150K per project
4-12 weeks delivery
CTO for Equity
$150K-250K + 1-3% equity
Full or part-time
Enterprise Architecture Background
Led SAP Commerce (Hybris) implementations for Fortune 500 clients at Deloitte, Accenture, and Corevist.
I know what scales to millions of users because I've built it—in both legacy SAP systems and modern AI platforms. This combination is rare and valuable.