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Product Engineer — Content Systems & AI-Era Growth

Andrew Hayter

Product-minded engineer with 9+ years building and operating web products, internal tools, and infrastructure-backed applications. Best at turning rough ideas, messy workflows, and ambiguous requirements into practical products and reliable systems — with a track record of designing systems that turn raw or public data into defensible product advantages at scale.

Experience

Independent Product Engineer / Founding Engineer

2021 — Present

Self-Directed

  • Designed and operated a multi-property content automation framework spanning scheduled publishing, cross-platform distribution, and AI-assisted generation, with unit economics tracked to sub-cent cost per generated page.
  • Built data-pipeline-backed content differentiation by ingesting public structured datasets to power calculators and current, sourced content, establishing a defensible content moat over competitors relying on static copy.
  • Tracked and responded to a structural shift in AI answer engines (Copilot, Perplexity, ChatGPT), using citation and traffic data to redesign content architecture and preserve visibility as direct-answer behavior increased.
  • Ran systematic competitive teardowns (sitemap extraction, feature inventory, traffic sizing) across category-leading products, translating findings into cost-sequenced build backlogs and implementation-ready specs.
  • Audited a 5,000+ URL content property end to end — structure, dead stubs, taxonomy mapping — as a repeatable diagnostic pass ahead of rebuild and migration work.
  • Developed a fullstack application using Next.js, TypeScript, Payload CMS, PostgreSQL, Docker, and Nginx, with a normalized schema and taxonomy system supporting 3,000+ structured entries across multiple categories and relationships.
  • Set up and maintained Linux infrastructure including DNS, SSL/TLS, backups, monitoring, and deployment automation.

Fullstack Developer, Cloud & Web

2018 — 2021

POWERSHiFTER Digital

  • Built web applications and cloud-connected systems across frontend, backend, CMS, and deployment layers.
  • Developed serverless applications on Google Cloud Platform using Cloud Functions, Firestore, and Pub/Sub.
  • Integrated frontend interfaces with Contentful CMS and contributed to CI/CD workflows across client projects.

Fullstack Web Developer (Contract)

2019

Goat Social

  • Built and launched CMS-driven websites for education-sector clients using Craft CMS and WordPress.
  • Implemented custom templates, content workflows, and deployment requirements under short timelines.

Fullstack Developer / Linux Web Hosting

2015 — 2019

Major Tom

  • Built, deployed, and maintained 30+ websites across Linux hosting environments.
  • Managed production hosting operations including SSH, backups, SSL/TLS, troubleshooting, and server maintenance.
  • Improved uptime, security, and performance across WordPress and Linux-based web environments.

Skills

Languages & Frameworks
TypeScript · JavaScript · Rust · Node.js · React · Next.js · Astro · PHP · WordPress · Payload CMS
Infrastructure & DevOps
Linux · Docker · Docker Compose · Nginx · Apache · CI/CD · GitHub Actions · GitLab CI · DNS · SSL/TLS · Cloudflare Workers/D1/KV/R2
Databases & Data
PostgreSQL · MySQL · Firestore · Schema design · Structured content systems · Public-dataset ingestion pipelines
Automation & Operations
Bash · Playwright · Web scraping · Competitive intelligence teardowns · Deployment workflows · Performance tuning
AI & LLM Workflows
ChatGPT · Claude · OpenRouter · Prompt engineering · AI-assisted development · Research synthesis · Implementation planning · Debugging support
Cloud & Platforms
Google Cloud Platform · Cloudflare Workers · OpenShift · AWS · Contentful · GitHub · GitLab

Education

Fullstack Web Development Bootcamp Lighthouse Labs, Vancouver, BC

Capstone People's Choice Award winner

2015

Solana Developer Cohort Solana Turbin3, Remote

2023

Contact

Open to product engineering, growth engineering, and content systems work. The fastest way to reach me is email.