// senior engineering & technical leadership, on tap

Build the software that actually matters.

I help founders and teams decide what to build, build it right, and keep it running, all without hiring full-time. Senior engineering, distilled to what moves the needle.

Start a conversation How it works

Over a decade building & running systems at AWS·HashiCorp·Huntress·dutchie·Sift Science·U.S. Air Force

How I work

Distilled, on purpose.

The name isn't decoration. Every engagement runs the same loop, and each step earns its place, or it gets cut.

  1. 01

    Distill

    Start with the real problem, not the feature list. I strip the idea down to the smallest thing that delivers the outcome you actually want, and I tell you the truth about the trade-offs before a line is written.

  2. 02

    Build

    Architect and build that: pragmatically, across the stack, no gold-plating and no half-finished detours. Well-made software that won't need a rewrite in six months.

  3. 03

    Execute

    Ship it to production and get it in front of real users. "Done" means live and working, not done on my machine. You see progress early and often.

  4. 04

    Observe

    Instrument it and watch how it behaves under real load: reliability, performance, security, and what people actually do. This is the step most teams skip; it's where running infrastructure at scale pays off.

  5. 05

    Iterate

    Feed what we learn back in. Sharpen what's working, cut what isn't, and keep the system lean, set up so you're never locked into me to maintain it.

Who you'd work with

Aaron Bennett

I'm a U.S.-based software architect. Today I'm Senior Software Architect at Huntress, and over the past decade I've built and run systems at HashiCorp, AWS, dutchie, and others. Before tech, I spent four years as a cyber and intelligence analyst in the U.S. Air Force.

I've designed APIs serving 100,000+ requests per minute, modernized infrastructure under real load, and been the person on call when something absolutely cannot go down. Distilled Development is how I take on a handful of projects a year where that experience makes the biggest difference.

Contact

Let's talk.

Tell me what you're working on. I take on a limited number of projects, so I read every message personally.