an engineering studio · san francisco
AI-native software,
built to production rigor.
Carbide is the San Francisco studio of Orion Parrott, a senior principal who designs, builds, and secures AI-native products end to end. The person doing the work is the person you hire. No dev shop. No offshore handoff.
Most AI software is demoed, not shipped. Getting from impressive to trustworthy is the hard part. That is the part we do.
what we do
Readiness Audit & Plan
A senior teardown: security, reliability, compliance, architecture. A prioritized findings registry and a plan to fix it.
Build Sprint
Two weeks of senior design-and-build, bought in blocks. Beautiful, correct, secure.
Zero-to-One
Your AI-native product, from near-zero to production, built by the principal.
proof
01 / regulated AI
An AI-native clinical-operations platform with explicit retrieval, immutable audit lineage, and GxP-grade rigor.
02 / hardened
A 78-finding launch audit: a critical data-isolation flaw closed, deploys made atomic, a rollback runbook delivered.
03 / silicon to cloud
Embedded firmware, reverse-engineered protocols, native apps, AI infrastructure. Range no body-shop can fake.
how we work
One senior principal, accountable end to end. AI leverage that delivers at the scope of a team, with the taste and judgment of a founder.
- /Fixed-scope sprints, not open-ended hours.
- /Security and reliability built in, not bolted on.
- /Design-conscious, from the data model to the type.
- /The principal is the maker. No handoff.
One principal. Accountable end to end.
Engagements start at $20,000.