Residential Project Mgt

Portfolio, Ventures & What I Build

Product/systems design that turns AI tech into business results

I'm Gil, an AI Product Design Engineer. I take complex workflows and turn them into AI-native systems, from discovery through shipped product.

My north star is the complete practitioner: the idea that the best AI-native products are shaped by one mind that can hold design, engineering, and AI logic simultaneously, not handed off through layers of interpretation.

When the same person who defines the workflow also builds the prototype and wires the AI, translation loss disappears. Teams move faster and the gap between what we designed and what shipped closes.

What I Bring

Enterprise Systems

Enterprise End-to-End Systems Builder

I've designed complex product ecosystems at enterprise scale — multi-product platforms, multi-role workflows, and long-running transformation initiatives as a solo designer. Systems thinking, not just screen design.

AI Product Engineering

AI-Native Product Design Engineer

I design and prototype AI-native product systems — RAG pipelines, agentic workflows, human-in-the-loop interfaces, structured outputs, and context-aware products. AI product work grounded in real systems, not demos.

Education & Evangelism

Technical Educator & Evangelist

I help people understand, adopt, and build with new technologies — through demos, workshops, tutorials, and product systems thinking. Teaching as adoption; adoption as product design.

A consistent practice across technology cycles

Tech Speaker Microsoft · 5,000+ developers

Co-founder 8th Light · Digital transformation

Startups + Enterprise Engine Yard · ThoughtWorks · Dev tools

Founder Skowak · Design engineering · Teaching

Enterprise Focus SunPower · Digital transformation · Ecosystems

AI Eng Focus Craftal · CareDash · Multi Agent Systems

Now Contextus · Craftal v.2 · AI-native systems

How I Work

I don’t start with AI. I start with how work actually happens.

The method works in cycles. Each one scoped small enough to prove value fast, wide enough to compound across the whole system.

Each cycle makes the next one faster, safer, and more valuable. Real workflows before AI use cases. No baseline, no proof. No proof, no scale.

01 — 03

Understand

Discover
Model
Baseline

Know before you build

04 — 06

Intervene

Design
Adapt & Script
Measure

Build small, prove value

07 — 08

Promote

Promote
Orchestrate

Make it durable and connected

09 — 10

Scale

Govern
Reuse & Expand

Govern and compound

Where most AI projects break down

Most AI failures aren't technical. They're structural: siloed teams, AI built without real workflows, ideas that can't survive contact with production. The method closes those gaps.

Design, engineering, and AI in separate rooms

Work lands in three different hands. Every handoff is a translation, and translation is where ideas lose fidelity.

One practitioner across all three layers

I lead design, write code, and wire the AI as one strategic partner across all three disciplines. No handoffs, no interpretation layers, no gap between what was designed and what shipped.

AI built without a workflow to plug into

Teams rush to launch LLM features with minimal ROI. Without mapping real workflows or solving real problems, the result is unused chatbots and shallow automation.

Bridge between LLMs and real work

I map how work actually happens first, then wire the AI stack into those real decisions. The result is automation that runs, not a chatbot no one uses.

Technical Toolkit

The full stack, from workflow model to deployed AI system.

My stack spans the full system: AI engineering (OpenAI & Anthropic APIs, LangChain, LangGraph, DSPy, RAG pipelines, vector stores, structured outputs, agent orchestration), frontend and prototyping (React, Angular, Vue, TypeScript, API-connected interfaces), backend and tooling (Python, FastAPI, Rails, PostgreSQL/pgvector, Docker), and product and design (systems modeling, workflow mapping, information architecture, interaction design, design engineering).

As a product generalist, I choose the right tool for each layer (design, front end, data, or model) so ideas travel from workflow model to shipped system without unnecessary handoffs.

Getting personal

Things I do when I'm not building

Still-life sketching, coastal hiking, PC teardowns, and slow travel through cities with good architecture.

I draw to stay sharp. I travel to stay curious. I take things apart to stay honest about how they work.

Back

Residential Project Mgt

An internal project management app that helped SunPower teams coordinate residential installations, holds, documents, tasks, and project status.

Skills applied:

Visual Design Interaction Design Frontend Dev Prototype Dev Research

SunPower’s residential installation process relied on fragmented Salesforce screens, spreadsheets, and manual coordination across teams. Project managers spent their days reacting to issues instead of proactively managing installs.

I led the redesign of the Residential Project Management App, creating a single, modern interface that centralized permits, scheduling, materials, and inspections, dramatically improving operational clarity and execution speed.

The Problem

Residential installation coordination was too fragmented.

After a homeowner committed to solar, the work became operationally complex. PMs had to coordinate site details, structural issues, documents, installation type, approvals, tasks, conversations, and handoffs across multiple teams.

The pain was not one missing screen. It was the constant need to reconstruct project truth from scattered data, emails, documents, Salesforce fields, and team conversations.

When a project went on hold, PMs needed to know why, who owned the next step, what documents were missing, and whether the issue affected SLA timelines.

diagram management 01 — Project truth was scattered across tasks, documents, conversations, and status updates.

Without a unified workspace, PMs spent too much time searching, clarifying, and manually coordinating work that should have been visible in one place.

Solution

Creating a command center for residential project work.

I designed the Residential Project Management app as a centralized workspace for internal PMs managing solar installations after the sale.

The app started with a clear project list. PMs could search, scan current project status, see what each project needed, and select the right customer file without jumping between disconnected tools.

sunpower project mgt 01 — Project managers started from a searchable list of active residential projects.

This gave PMs a lightweight operational dashboard. Instead of starting from a blank system or hunting through records, they could immediately see which projects needed attention.

Centralizing project communication

A major part of residential project work was conversational. Teams needed to coordinate around holds, site concerns, structural reviews, customer communication, and installation readiness.

sunpower project mgt 02 — Conversation history centralized project updates and team decisions.

The conversation view made project context easier to recover. PMs could see why a project was on hold, what had been discussed, who responded, and what decision was pending.

This helped reduce the risk of losing critical project details across email threads or informal messages.

diagram management 02 — The new workspace connected people, tasks, documents, and project context.

Consolidating project details into one view

The details view brought together the information PMs needed to understand the project’s current state.

It showed installation type, account owner, customer type, status, site details, system details, utility information, roof conditions, panel quantity, inverter type, and other operational data.

sunpower project mgt 03 — Project details consolidated site, system, customer, and status information.

This mattered because PM decisions depended on context. A hold was not just a status label. It could relate to roof conditions, structural concerns, utility details, missing documents, or installation constraints.

The interface helped PMs see the relationship between project facts and the work required to move the project forward.

Turning holds into actionable task workflows

The task view was one of the most important parts of the system. It turned ambiguous project issues into assigned, trackable work.

A PM could see the task name, description, assignee, start date, end date, SLA status, SLA aging, task status, subtasks, and attachments.

sunpower project mgt 04 — Task views helped PMs resolve holds with ownership and SLA visibility.

This changed the workflow from “someone needs to follow up” to “this issue has an owner, due date, status, and next steps.”

The subtasks made progress visible. The attachment area connected supporting documentation directly to the work being resolved.

Keeping project documents close to the work

Residential solar projects depend on documentation: flat roof assessments, structural reports, membrane inspections, design files, hold notes, and other evidence.

sunpower project mgt 05 — Document management kept reports and assessments tied to the project.

The document repository kept those artifacts inside the project workspace. PMs could review uploaded files, inspect supporting reports, and connect documentation to the project’s status.

This reduced the need to search through external folders, email attachments, or disconnected document systems.

Supporting team assignment when work changed hands

Some issues required routing work to another team member. Assignment controls helped PMs transfer responsibility without losing task context.

sunpower project mgt 06 — Assignment controls helped route work to the right team member.

This supported the reality of residential operations. PMs did not work alone. They needed to coordinate with structural reviewers, project coordinators, installation teams, customer-facing teams, and document owners.

Outcome

The app gave PMs a clearer way to manage residential installation work.

The Residential Project Management app helped internal teams reduce ambiguity across active projects. It turned scattered information into a project workspace where status, tasks, conversations, documents, and ownership could be managed together.

diagram management 03 — Holds became traceable workflows with owners, evidence, and next steps.

Estimated impact based on project context:

Reduced project lookup and context-switching
Clearer hold resolution workflows
Better visibility into task ownership and SLA aging
Fewer lost details across conversations and documents
Faster project status understanding for PMs
More reliable coordination across installation teams

The project showed how internal tools can create operational leverage. By making project truth visible, the app helped PMs move from reactive coordination to structured execution.