AI systems
LLM classification and evaluation, semantic search, and AI built into everyday workflows.
Example: AI vs. human sentiment analysis
Research software engineer and AI consultant
Let’s work together to achieve your vision.
AI systems, search, websites, and mobile apps for researchers, startups, and the teams around them. I translate your idea and expertise into software that works. You get demos of your idea until we’re aligned.
Also open to the right full-time role.
99%
less indexing time: overnight to minutes
96%
less search time: minutes to seconds
25×
faster image processing for a team of five
3
countries where I’ve presented the work
What I build
From first demo to working system
Search over your data
Fast, precise search over specialized collections, by keywords or by semantic meaning.
Examples: Melody Search Index, FMC Research Assistant
Websites and mobile apps
Full-stack apps, from the first clickable demo to the shipped product.
Example: Yellowstone field guide
Data and automation
Pipelines, computer vision, and signal processing that take the slow, manual parts out of the work.
Examples: Auto-cropper, Biosignal research
Selected work
Results people can use
Case study · Music research · 2023 to now
Melody Search Index
- Challenge
- Researchers waited overnight for the index to rebuild and minutes for every search.
- What I built
- A full-stack melody-similarity search on Elasticsearch, replacing sliding-window n-gram matching, plus OCR and RAG over 10k+ records.
- Result
- Indexing in minutes and searches in seconds, used by researchers worldwide and presented in Texas, Salzburg, and Venice.
Search · Live FMC Research Assistant Search over 4,033 documents of 19th-century French music press, by keywords or by semantic meaning, running entirely on local GPUs. LLM evaluation · Talk, Dec 2026 AI vs. human sentiment analysis An LLM pipeline that codes newspaper coverage the way trained research assistants do, and measures how closely it matches them. Mobile · In progress Yellowstone field guide app An offline Android field guide, built from a 40-page microbiology guidebook, that tells you what's alive in the water you're standing over.
More projects
Everything else I’ve built
AI and data
- Auto-cropper Cropped 7k+ images automatically: 25× faster, with 96% less manual editing for a team of five.
- Biosignal research EEG and heart-rate features, built with FFT and statistical modeling, that separate state anxiety from trait anxiety.
- Vector embeddings and RAG Vector embeddings, hybrid search, reranking, and RAG over research collections, from the FMC Research Assistant to my Venice talk, “A Cohesive Look at RAG for Research.”
- Local transcription Private audio and video transcription with faster-whisper on two local GPUs, with no cloud and no uploads.
- AI text extractor A command-line tool for extracting text with AI.
Web and mobile
- Apartment and rent portal A web portal for apartments and rent.
- Tweeter A Twitter clone in TypeScript.
- Assassin An Android game with a Java server and an automated test rig.
- Hack Tank An app for focus and routines, with work cycles, check-ins, and a searchable library of 423 tips distilled from neuroscience research.
Tools and games
- Toki pona parser A grammar and syntax tree for a minimalist language.
- Roommate assigner Integer linear programming that matches roommates from survey answers.
- Campfire A storytelling horror game in Godot.
- Wii Tanks editor A decompiler, graphical editor, and recompiler for Wii Play's Tanks. Edit enemy values, hero tank values, level tank configuration, and level block placements.
Skills
Tools I work with
Languages
- Java
- C#
- C and C++
- Python
- JavaScript and TypeScript
- SQL
AI and data
- LLMs
- RAG
- Vector embeddings
- Semantic search
- Elasticsearch
- OpenCV
- Signal processing
Platforms
- AWS
- Docker
- Linux
- Git
- PostgreSQL
- REST APIs
- Android
Exploring
- Cryptography
- Zero-knowledge proofs
- IoT
- Neural networks
- Integer programming
Working together
Ways to work with me
Projects
A fixed scope and price to turn your vision into something people see.
Ongoing support
Hosting, upkeep, and improvements for systems I’ve built, on a monthly plan.
Full-time roles
Open to the right team, especially in AI, security, and research.
About
A generalist with a focus in tech
I’m Jacob Stevenson, a research software engineer and AI consultant. For three years I’ve built software for people who know their field: search and AI for musicologists and religion scholars, a field-guide app for scientists, and websites and mobile apps for startups and small teams.
Eagle Scout, black belt, musician, DM, philosopher, zymologist, scuba diver, and former “World’s Youngest Person.”
Beyond work: the longer version- Education
- B.S. Computer Science, Brigham Young University
- Speaking
- Venice, 2026 · Salzburg, 2025 · Texas, 2024. Future talks
- Languages
- English and Spanish
- Based in
- Provo, Utah. Open to relocation.
Have something slow, stuck, or not built yet?
Book a 20-minute intro, or a 45-minute scoping call if you already have a project in mind.
Also open to the right full-time role.