James O.
✓ Vetted CrafterPrincipal Software Engineer – MVP & Integrations
I build MVPs and connect them to the world — APIs, webhooks, and integrations that work.
About
I build MVPs and connect them to the world. I have shipped 6 products from concept to production in 6–10 weeks. My focus is on APIs, webhooks, and integrations: connecting products to Stripe, CRMs, and third-party services. Cursor helps me scaffold integrations and debug API issues faster.
I work with TypeScript, React, Node.js, and PostgreSQL. I have built payment integrations, OAuth flows, and event-driven architectures. I believe that an MVP is only useful when it connects to the ecosystem — payments, data sync, notifications. I deliver products that work end-to-end.
AI Expertise
Notable Projects
Enterprise SharePoint AI Assistant
Built a Semantic Kernel-based AI assistant that connects to SharePoint, Teams, and Outlook via Microsoft Graph API plugins. Uses Azure AI Search for RAG over corporate knowledge base with fine-grained Entra ID permission filtering so users only get answers from documents they are authorized to read.
✓ Deployed to 8,000 employees; 62% of knowledge queries resolved without human escalation; IT helpdesk ticket volume reduced by 29%.
Responsible AI Content Moderation Pipeline
Designed a multi-layer content safety system for an Azure OpenAI-powered customer-facing application. Built prompt injection detection, output groundedness verification against source documents, PII redaction, and a human-in-the-loop escalation workflow. Integrated Azure AI Content Safety APIs alongside custom heuristic checks.
✓ Achieved zero successful prompt injection attacks and zero PII leaks in 6 months of production; passed enterprise security audit with no findings in the AI layer.
Autonomous Procurement Agent
Architected a LangGraph-based procurement agent that autonomously processes purchase requests, validates against budget policies, gets quotes from supplier APIs, and routes approvals through a human-in-the-loop workflow. Integrates with SAP via custom tool functions.
✓ Reduced procurement cycle from 5 business days to 8 hours for standard purchases under $10K; processing cost per purchase order reduced by 71%.
Work Experience
Principal AI Engineer
RBC (Royal Bank of Canada)
2021 – Present
Lead AI engineering for the enterprise productivity AI platform. Define the responsible AI architecture standards and the Azure OpenAI governance model for a regulated financial services context.
Senior Software Engineer, AI & ML
Microsoft Canada
2015 – 2021
Worked on the Azure Cognitive Services team building APIs for text analytics, custom vision, and conversational AI. Contributed to the early Semantic Kernel SDK as an internal contributor.
Education & Certifications
M.Sc. Computer Science (AI)
University of Waterloo · 2014
Interested in working with James?
Tell us about your project and we'll facilitate an introduction.