--- title: Mike Mindel | Agentic AI engineer --- United Kingdom, remote / hybrid / on-site | hello@mikemindel.com | [+44 7481 346418](tel:+447481346418) | [LinkedIn](https://linkedin.com/in/mikemindel) | [mikemindel.com](https://mikemindel.com) *** ## Professional summary **Agentic AI engineer** and founder-operator who builds AI skills, agents and Model Context Protocol (“MCP”) and CLI tools. I use AI to ship software that stays traceable, testable and easy to change. My specialist area is agentic-driven development. I turn ambiguous ideas into bounded, reviewable work, using Python for deterministic checks and a visible Kanban board for delivery. I co-founded [Wordtracker](https://wordtracker.com), led its technology from two developers to around 25 and helped scale turnover roughly 100×. I now build [Stride](https://getstride.dev), a practical agentic system in use on paid client work. Available for remote, hybrid or on-site work. ## Skills | Category | Technology | Proficiency | Experience and context | |:---------|:-----------|:------------|:-----------------------| | AI and agents | Claude Code, Codex and Gemini CLI | Competent | 2 years / 1 year / 1 year. Agent-assisted engineering. | | | Context engineering | Competent | 1 year. Making agent work reliable and traceable. | | Delivery practice | Linear and Kanban | Competent | 1 year. Visible delivery and work-in-progress management. | | | Atomic commits | Competent | 10 years. Small, reviewable delivery steps. | | Languages | Python | Very competent | 8 years. Agent checks, APIs and data systems. | | | TypeScript | Familiar | 2 years. Web work and smart-glasses integration. | | | SQL | Competent | 12 years. Product and analytics data. | | Python and APIs | FastAPI | Competent | 2 years. Type-safe APIs with automatic documentation. | | | Pydantic | Familiar | 2 years. Data validation and settings management. | | | pytest | Familiar | 2 years. Test automation. | | Data and cloud | Amazon Redshift, S3 and Athena | Competent / Competent / Familiar | 4 years / 10 years / 4 years. Wordtracker data stack. | | | AWS | Competent | 6 years. Wordtracker infrastructure and data platform. | | | Google Cloud Platform (GCP) | Familiar | 6 months. Data engineering. | | | Docker | Competent | 4 years. Local development and deployment. | | | Fly.io, Vercel and Runway | Familiar / Competent / Familiar | 2 years / 1 year / 6 months. Deployment and AI video tooling. | | | Terraform | Familiar | 1 year. Cloud infrastructure work. | | Engineering practice | Test-driven development and object-oriented design | Competent | 8 years. Red, green, refactor and design for change. | ## Professional experience ### January 2026–present | Stride | Founder and agentic engineer [getstride.dev](https://getstride.dev) - Built Stride, an agentic-driven development system that keeps AI-built software traceable, reversible and tied to a Vision. - Built reusable skills, agents and CLI tools around bounded tasks, plans, atomic commits and independent review. The method is in use on paid client work. - Presented [Stop building on quicksand](https://getstride.dev/stop-building-on-quicksand) at the AI Global Festival, 2026. *Python, Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI, MCP, Linear, Git.* ### 1998–present | Wordtracker | Founder and technology lead [wordtracker.com](https://wordtracker.com) - Co-founded the keyword-research SaaS, grew the engineering team from two developers to around 25 and helped scale turnover roughly 100× over its first decade. - Wrote the FastAPI backend API and AWS data pipelines behind roughly 350M unique keywords, processing roughly 10B searches across 200+ territories. - Technical leadership from developer through CEO / CTO, with hands-on product and engineering ownership throughout. *Python, FastAPI, PostgreSQL, Redshift, AWS Glue, S3, Athena, Parquet, Elasticsearch, IAM, VPC.* ### June 2026 | Smart-glasses integration | 1 month, remote contract For an early-stage AI startup, built and tested a [Convex](https://convex.dev) reactive-database app with real-time two-way sync to smart glasses. Delivered a prototype and written findings remotely. **Constraint found:** Google sign-in could not run in the glasses' embedded WebView. Recommended email-based sign-in instead. *TypeScript, Convex, Clerk, Even Realities G2 SDK, WebView.* ## Other projects - **2026, [Codetidy](https://github.com/webventurer/codetidy):** Python toolkit for inspecting repositories. - **2026, [app-starter](https://github.com/webventurer/app-starter):** Full-stack web starter with documented technology choices. - **2020–present, [99bottles](https://github.com/webventurer/99bottles):** Sandi Metz's Python refactoring exercise. ## Education and recognition - **BA (Hons) Film & Drama, 2:1**, Reading University, 1993–1996. **Computer Science & Maths**, Bristol University, 1991–1992. - Interviewed by the [Financial Times](https://mikemindel.com/wordtracker-ft-profile) about Wordtracker's early growth. ## Interests Agentic-driven development, software design and the practical systems that make AI-built software easier to trust and change. I'm particularly interested in bringing the hard-won software development practices of the last 40 years into the world of AI. I'm a fan of the red, green, refactor TDD loop, Sandi Metz's flocking rules and atomic commits. They make code easier and cheaper to change. Ran the [Wam Bam Club](https://contact.wambamclub.com/) and made the feature film [Don't Let Him In](https://vimeo.com/178247503).