Art
Tiongson
Operations Builder · Directs Agentic AI |
I direct AI agents to build production software. My domain is operations and accounting: I own the problem end to end, requirements, architecture, and source-verified validation, while agents write the implementation under my standards.
How I
Got Here
I ran $65 million in store operations before I ever wrote a line of code. That's why I build differently, and why I now direct AI agents to ship the systems I used to wish for.
Before moving into product accounting, I led store operations at a major national retailer, managing a $65M book of business, leading cross-functional teams, redesigning operational workflows, training staff on new systems, and owning the P&L outcomes.
When I moved into product accounting, I found myself working inside Microsoft Dynamics NAV, running monthly close processes and managing inventory reconciliation. Within my first month, I looked at a reconciliation workflow that consumed 2-3 days every cycle and I decided to fix it.
I fixed it. I directed AI to build an automated Power Query pipeline pulling live data through ODBC connections directly from our ERP database. What took days now takes one click. The real lesson was not that AI could write code for me. It was that I could direct it to build real systems, and that the constraint was my judgment about what to build, not the typing.
So I escalated the same skill: from automating one report, to directing agentic coding workflows in Claude Code, to running multiple AI agents in parallel under my direction and building the custom tooling (MCP servers) that extends what they can do. The output: Jarvis, my private, always-on AI assistant with a governed agent runtime, full-duplex voice, two-way iMessage, and a human-gated self-modification loop; an open-source Excel MCP server that gives agents token-bounded access to spreadsheets; Ombri and ArtFitness on iOS; Music Tool on iPad; an internal inventory portal in ASP.NET Core; and this site. I directed agents to build all of it.
I don't position myself as a traditional developer. I'm an operations builder who directs agentic AI to ship at the speed of a full engineering team, and who builds the agent tooling itself. I see where processes break down, and I have the judgment and the tooling to fix them.
How I Work
I don't write the code, and I never have. I direct AI agents to build it. My job is the part the agents can't do: owning the problem, setting the architecture, holding the standards, and verifying the result against the source. I work the way a lead does, except my team is a fleet of AI coding agents running in parallel.
Impact
What I Work With
Things I've Built
Jarvis
A self-hosted AI assistant platform with the Claude API as its reasoning core. Full-duplex voice, two-way iMessage, and smart-home control, with persistent memory and a permission layer that allow-lists and audits every tool call.
ArtFitness
A native iOS workout app with an AI coaching engine that gives real-time, in-workout feedback informed by your training history. A REST API exposes workout data to other tools, and response caching keeps per-user inference cost in check.
Excel MCP Server
An open-source MCP server that lets an AI agent read and manipulate Excel workbooks directly, with token guardrails that keep large-file operations inside the model's context window.
Old Projects
Ombri
Finance by the hour: a personal finance iOS app with a time-of-day aesthetic. Morning, afternoon, sunset, and night themes shift the interface as the day moves. Currently in beta.
Music Tool
An iPad reference tool for guitar, ukulele, and bass. Chord library with color-coded voicings rendered on a live fretboard, scale visualization, chromatic tuner with autocorrelation pitch detection, and a songs workspace with chord diagrams.
Inventory Management Portal
Replaced slow legacy system lookups with an instant, cached dashboard, giving the team real-time visibility into inventory issues.
Let's Connect
I'm open to roles where one person owns real surface area where software meets an industry vertical, the kind of work where directing agentic AI lets me ship like a full team.
