About Me

Professional headshot of Travis Smith, engineering leader and senior software engineer

Hi, I'm Travis Smith!

I'm an engineering leader and hands-on senior engineer based in the Des Moines, IA area, with 18+ years building full-stack web, mobile, and cloud systems — and leading the teams that ship them. I'm equally at home deep in the code and running an engineering org.

What I Do

Hands-on, I design and ship production AI agents, MCP (Model Context Protocol) servers, and AI-assisted development workflows on the Anthropic platform — Claude Code, Cowork, Design, and the Anthropic API. I scaled a secured MCP server from 1 to 40 integrations in three months — improving business workflows by 50% — and cut prototype turnaround from three weeks to six hours.

As Director of Engineering at Shift Interactive, I've defined engineering strategy, restructured and hired teams of 3–15, and led company-wide AI/ML adoption to 95% — work that helped drive a 30% increase in sales. I lead with a Test-Driven Development and Extreme Programming culture — pairing, CI/CD — while staying close to clients as the primary technical voice in the room.

Core Strengths

My Gallup Clifton Strengths reveal what drives my approach to engineering and leadership:

  • Restorative: Adept at identifying and resolving complex problems
  • Learner: Continuous desire to improve and expand my skills
  • Focus: Prioritize effectively and follow through on commitments
  • Context: Understand the present by researching and learning from history
  • Achiever: Hard-working with consistently high productivity

Core Stack

C#, .NET, TypeScript, React, Next.js, Python/Django, Node.js, and AWS/Azure.

  • AI & Agentic Engineering — Agents, MCP Servers, AI-Assisted Development
  • Engineering Leadership — Team Building, Strategy, Delivery
  • Software Architecture & Design
  • Test-Driven Development (TDD) & Extreme Programming (XP)
  • Continuous Integration/Deployment

Education & Continuous Learning

I hold a Master of Information Systems (Project Management) from American InterContinental University, but my education never stopped. As a natural learner, I'm constantly exploring new technologies, methodologies, and best practices. I believe in the power of community and knowledge sharing to advance our field, and I'm always eager to both learn from others and share what I've discovered.

Let's Connect

I value building relationships in the tech community. Whether you're interested in collaboration, have questions about software or AI engineering, or just want to connect, I'd love to hear from you. Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn.