01
DISCOVER
I map the workflow end to end before I touch a tool. I sit in on calls, watch the actual work, and find the bottleneck most teams have stopped seeing. Most implementations fail here, not in the build.
Most AI projects never get adopted.I'm here to solve that.
I'm Sage Dutra. AI Solutions Architect.
I build systems that get adopted because they're designed around the people who use them.
Where adoption breaks down.*And what I do about it.
Pilots that stall before production.
I run discovery and a data-readiness check in week zero, then design for the workflow, not the demo.
Tools nobody adopts.
I build for the people who have to use them, with hands-on training and support until it sticks. More than two hundred trained.
AI spend with no provable return.
I attach one owned metric to one workflow before a line of code is written.
Agent hype that gets cancelled.
I scope agents conservatively and keep a human on the high-stakes call. I can also tell a real agent from a rebranded chatbot.
* Sourced from MIT Project NANDA, State of AI in Business 2025, McKinsey State of AI 2025, Menlo Ventures 2025, and Gartner 2025.
Trusted by 30+ Orgs.Most of Them Local.
Systems PeopleActually Use.
I've spent fifteen years building marketing, software, and operational systems for organizations that needed them to actually work.
- Salesforce CRMs for 30 to 40 user teams
- 20,000 record migrations
- A HIPAA-compliant intake platform across roughly 15 practices in a newly regulated field
- 200+ people trained on the systems I built
The market stopped needing people who train models. It needs people who get bought tools adopted inside real work. I've been doing that for 15 years.
76% of enterprise AI use cases are now bought rather than built. Menlo Ventures, 2025.
How I Runan Engagement.
The same method whether I am on staff full time or brought in for a project. Find the real bottleneck, design for the people who live with it, and stay until it sticks.
02
DESIGN
I translate what I found into a system on paper first: process maps, requirements, and the trade-offs stated plainly. The people who will use it review it before anything gets built.
03
BUILD
I architect for adoption, not just function. Fault-tolerant, humans in the loop for high-stakes calls, and built to survive contact with real users instead of passing a demo.
04
ADOPT
I do not ship and disappear. Hands-on training, documentation, and post-launch support. More than two hundred people trained on systems I built, across thirty-plus organizations.
In a full-time seat this runs on a loop. On a shorter contract, the first two stages stand alone as a deliverable.
Portfolio and Case Studies
Three AI Systems. Built Solo.
Each one proves something different. Reliability engineering, orchestration breadth, and multi-agent deliberation. The full deep-dive on each is one click away.
Read the full build: FORGE
AI System / Flagship
FORGE
An autonomous, human-gated multi-agent pipeline that researches a local business, writes a custom site from scratch, runs outreach, and onboards the customer. Built solo, five iterations in five months.
Built for the failure mode that kills AI systems, the output that looks right and is wrong.
54staged sites
5architectural iterations
Temporaldurable orchestration
What this proves
Production-grade reliability engineering, not a demo.
Production-grade, operated end to end on real data, pre-revenue by design.
Read the full buildArchitecture on GitHub
Read the full build: Solution Factory
AI System
Solution Factory
An autonomous solution architect on LangGraph. Hand it a business process; it interviews you with an expert-persona panel, designs a corpus-grounded solution, then turns an adversarial panel loose until zero blockers remain, and emits a build-ready spec.
LangGraphplus LangChain
14-nodegraph, 2 human gates
3 runsverified end to end
What this proves
Orchestration breadth across two frameworks, plus adversarial-loop and cost-engineering judgment.
Local dev tool, verified on real runs, not a deployed product.
Read the full buildView source on GitHub
Read the full build: Founders Circle
AI System
Founders Circle
An autonomous strategy council of seven AI personas with structured voting, task extraction, and an Obsidian-backed institutional memory.
7persona council
Votingplus task extraction
Obsidianinstitutional memory
What this proves
Designing multi-agent deliberation and durable institutional memory.
Built solo.
Read the full buildView source on GitHub
Earlier in my Career
Fifteen Years of Systems That Stuck.
The track record the AI work is built on. Salesforce deployments, a regulated intake platform, launches, and a department built from scratch. Each one led by the hardest number it can defend.
$0 - $29M
pipeline architected in 12 months
Powerfield Energy
Director of Communications · 2020 to 2022
Built the entire go-to-market engine for a pre-revenue solar-hardware startup: brand, website, paid acquisition, sales videos, and a custom Salesforce instance. The pipeline I architected grew from $0 to $29M in twelve months, and the CRM scaled from 3 to 6 users as the team grew.
“Sage came recommended to us and we hired him for an off-site project on a short timeline. He was exceptional in his creativity, professionalism, and planning. He worked around the clock and through multiple iterations to give us exactly what we needed for our customers and investors.”
SalesforceGo-to-MarketBrand & WebExecutive Training
$4.11
cost per signup on paid acquisition
BotlWyz Launch
Go-to-Market Lead · 2020 to 2021
Ran the full public launch of a Portland gig-economy startup: positioning, paid social, two-audience email automation, SMS, website, and a custom Salesforce instance. The email system beat cited industry benchmarks by 3 to 5 times, a 33.6% open and 12.8% click against 17.9% and 2.3% averages, and paid acquisition landed registrations at $4.11 each.
“Sage is a highly intelligent and enthusiastic member of my marketing team. Success often depends on the people you surround yourself with. Sage's presence on the team increases my confidence we will be successful.”
Email AutomationPaid AcquisitionSalesforce
15 → 118
students enrolled in one year, a 47% applicant-to-enrolled rate
Student Communications Department
Founder & Director · YWAM Salem · 2016 to 2018
Pioneered and led a 15-person department from scratch. Built the recruiting CRM, the admissions-approval workflow, and a content-analytics loop, then personally ran recruiting for the first months to refine the system before hiring. Wrote the manuals and onboarding, trained the team to own their sub-systems, drove cost-per-lead down to roughly $5 to $7, and built the outbound system that generated more than 60% of all applications. In a single year, enrollment grew from 15 to 118 students, a 47% applicant-to-enrolled conversion.
“One of Sage’s strengths is his ability to be incredibly focused and goal oriented while being genuinely interested in his clients. He wants the best solution possible for you and your team.”
Team LeadershipSalesforceRecruiting FunnelTraining
10
user accounts live across a multi-country rollout
Loom International CRM
Solutions Architect · 2017 to 2018
End-to-end Salesforce deployment for a global nonprofit. Workflow automation across multiple countries, followed by six months of weekly hands-on training so every team actually adopted it. One of nine from-scratch CRM builds in the portfolio.
“Sage expressed an enthusiastic and encouraging approach to assessing our needs, provided logical customization after listening intently to our wishes and followed it all up with well-designed practical training to help us get up and running.”
SalesforceMulti-CountryWorkflow AutomationTraining
20,000+
record CRM migration, Highrise to Salesforce
Salesforce Implementation Portfolio
Solutions Architect · 2018 to 2022
Nine Salesforce implementations, seven built from scratch and two overhauls, across nonprofits and startups. The largest single migration moved more than 20,000 records from Highrise into Salesforce Nonprofit over roughly two months, with me as project manager and architect. Each from-scratch build ran discovery to adoption in about three months on an enforced maintenance-and-training retainer.
“Adept at not only the technical aspects of the work, but clear in communicating with those who were new to the platform or level of technology.”
SalesforceData MigrationProcess Design9 Builds
1 day
intake turnaround, down from 7 to 14 days
HIPAA-Compliant Intake Platform
Architect & Implementer · 2023 to 2024
Designed and shipped a solo-built, HIPAA-compliant digital intake system for a newly regulated field within a week of the regulations publishing. Consolidated more than 12 required forms into a 3-step process, moved sensitive data off unsecured email, and cut intake turnaround from 7 to 14 days down to a single day. Deployed to roughly 15 practices.
Custom BuildHIPAANewly Regulated Field
Two Successful Companies.An Impeccable Track Record.
64 public reviews across two Google Business Profiles, Upswing and ClearHaven, at a 4.9 average.
"Sage came recommended to us and we hired him for an off-site project on a short timeline. He was exceptional in his creativity, professionalism, and planning. He worked around the clock and through multiple iterations to give us exactly what we needed for our customers and investors."
★★★★★
Drew Bond
CEO, Powerfield Energy
Fifteen Years of4.9-Star Reviews.
Across a decade of work and two companies, 64 public reviews at a 4.9 average. Upswing → · ClearHaven →
Heads up: you’ll see “Ryan” on older reviews.
I legally changed my name in 2025.
★★★★★
"A creative thinker with the ability to execute."
B O'Brien
Cherry City Interiors & Design
4.9
Star average across 64 public reviews, a decade of work.
✓Verified on the public Google Business Profile
★★★★★
"The area's premier marketing strategist."
Logan Martin
Good Notion Media Company
★★★★★
"He did his preparation excellently, followed through on what he promised."
Colleen Milstein
Loom International
★★★★★
"Incredibly knowledgeable and easy to work with."
Kevin Hohnbaum
Willamette Vital Health
★★★★★
"A creative thinker with the ability to execute."
B O'Brien
Cherry City Interiors & Design
4.9
Star average across 64 public reviews, a decade of work.
✓Verified on the public Google Business Profile
★★★★★
"The area's premier marketing strategist."
Logan Martin
Good Notion Media Company
★★★★★
"He did his preparation excellently, followed through on what he promised."
Colleen Milstein
Loom International
★★★★★
"Incredibly knowledgeable and easy to work with."
Kevin Hohnbaum
Willamette Vital Health
15+
Years building systems clients still use today.
★★★★★
"Brings fresh ideas and energy to the table."
Sam Skillern
Salem Leadership Foundation
★★★★★
"He wants the best solution possible for you and your team."
Josua Matthias
YWAM Salem
★★★★★
"Well-designed practical training to help us get up and running."
Steve Kilpatrick
Loom International
★★★★★
"Intensely creative, with a knack for important details."
Douglas Vincent
Salem Leadership Foundation
15+
Years building systems clients still use today.
★★★★★
"Brings fresh ideas and energy to the table."
Sam Skillern
Salem Leadership Foundation
★★★★★
"He wants the best solution possible for you and your team."
Josua Matthias
YWAM Salem
★★★★★
"Well-designed practical training to help us get up and running."
Steve Kilpatrick
Loom International
★★★★★
"Intensely creative, with a knack for important details."
Douglas Vincent
Salem Leadership Foundation
Fifteen Years.Four Lanes.
What I've built with, deeply enough to architect, deploy, and train on.
AI & Automation
Multi-agent orchestrationAgentic workflow designPrompt engineeringClaude (Max + API)GPT-4oGemini FlashPerplexity SonarTemporal workflowsPipeline architectureAutonomous process automationLangGraphLangChainClaude Code (headless)Human-in-the-loop designLLM cost routingAdversarial evaluation (critic panels)Source-grounded generation (cited claims)Durable execution & checkpointingLLM evaluation (evals)Persistent agent memoryVision-based QA (Gemini Vision)
Systems & Infrastructure
Salesforce CRM (admin + deployment)Supabase / PostgresVercel / Vercel BlobNode.jsAPI integrationData migration (20K+ records)Workflow automationSolution architectureTypeScriptPythonGitHub Actions (CI/CD)Automated testing (Jest)PlaywrightPorts-and-adapters architectureDatabase schema designEvent-driven orchestration (signals & timers)
Business Operations
Marketing automationGA4 analyticsSchema markupPaid ads managementCRM strategyLead scoringReportingCompliance documentation (HIPAA)Technical SEOMarketing operationsLifecycle & email marketingConversion trackingProcess documentation (SOPs)Customer journey mapping
Leadership & Delivery
Discovery & requirements analysisStakeholder managementTeam building (12-15 direct reports)Training design & deliveryExecutive presentationsChange managementCross-functional project leadershipWorkshop facilitationService designSolutions consultingTechnical documentationOnboarding & enablementProject management
Likely Questions.
The things people usually ask first.
Why hire an implementation specialist instead of having our own engineers do it?+
Because the data favors it. MIT found expert-partnered builds reach production at 67% against 22% for internal-only. The bottleneck is rarely engineering talent. It is discovery, workflow redesign, evaluation, and adoption, which is the work I specialize in.
Do you have a four-year degree?+
No. What I have is fifteen years of building systems for thirty-plus organizations, with a 4.9 rating across 64 public reviews over a decade. Companies that have dropped degree requirements (Google, Apple, IBM, most AI-native startups in 2026) recognize that applied work is the better signal. If a four-year degree is a hard requirement, I'm not the right candidate. If results are, I am.
Have you worked at a tech company before?+
Not as a W-2 employee. I've built and implemented systems for thirty-plus organizations as a founder and consultant, including Salesforce deployments, custom intake platforms, and FORGE, an autonomous AI pipeline that runs end to end. I bring the perspective of having been the customer who had to make the technology actually work. That perspective is hard to develop from inside the industry.
What's the deal with Upswing? Are you still running it?+
Yes, on the side. Upswing is a productized website business for local trades, built on FORGE, an autonomous pipeline. Launch is intentionally held while I build supporting tools and run my job search, so it stays low-touch and does not compete with a senior W-2 role. The work I'm seeking is broader, faster-moving, and operates at a scale I cannot reach alone.
How quickly can you start?+
Immediately. I'm based in Salem, Oregon, fully remote-ready, and not in a notice period.
What's your AI experience, in detail?+
I've designed and built three AI systems solo. FORGE is the centerpiece: an autonomous multi-agent pipeline using Claude Max (Sonnet and Opus) for creative work and Gemini Flash for analytics, orchestrated with Temporal workflows for durable execution. It researches local businesses, writes custom HTML websites from scratch, generates personalized outreach, and carries built-in payment and a retention loop. Postgres for state, Vercel for deployment, per-prospect workspaces for context. Built solo across five iterations, with deterministic post-processing and a silent-homogenization detector doing the reliability work.
Alongside FORGE I built Founders Circle (an autonomous strategy council of seven AI personas with voting, task extraction, and an Obsidian-backed institutional memory) and the Solution Factory (an autonomous solution architect on LangGraph that interviews you with an expert-persona panel, designs a corpus-grounded solution, then turns an adversarial panel loose on the design through a bounded revision loop until zero blockers remain, emitting a build-ready spec behind two human gates). The deeper breakdowns are linked from the "Other AI Systems" section above.
Are you open to in-office or hybrid?+
Fully remote is the priority. I have five children with a 50/50 custody arrangement, which makes relocation impractical. For the right team and a strong remote culture, occasional travel for offsites and key meetings is fine.
More questions? Email sage.dutra@gmail.com.