Karsten Eckhardt Karsten Eckhardt Data & AI systems · Teams

A field guide to how he works

I build the data and AI systems that scaling companies run on — and the teams that keep building them.

Every company wants AI. But AI doesn’t fix broken operations — it amplifies them. The gap is almost always data, so that’s where I start. Then comes the agent layer on top, with the evidence discipline to prove it works.

The method

How I work on any system — the same five moves, whatever the business.

  1. 01 See the whole system Interconnected problems, not isolated tickets.
  2. 02 Find the leverage point The one build that pays out in every direction.
  3. 03 Build the platform One investment, made to serve many needs.
  4. 04 Grow the people The team that keeps building after you.
  5. 05 Leave it running Systems and teams that outlive you.
Casework

Four systems, one method — each worked to the depth the problem needed.

  1. Audience Serv VP Data Analytics & Deliverability · 2018–2021

    Three bottlenecks were one bottleneck. I built the platform that cleared all three — and the team that ran it.

    1 → 12 data team built and trained 5 of 5 moves
  2. FPT Software Principal Data Engineer & Solution Architect · 2022–2023

    Brought into a Fortune 500 engagement that was slipping. The stack was new to me; the shape of the problem was not.

    7-figure follow-on revenue this earned FPT 4 of 5 moves
  3. Synna Co-Founder & CTO · Antler · 2023

    As CTO, I bet the raise on a working product over a pitch deck, not a promise — and the build is what got us funded.

    $120K pre-seed, secured on the strength of the build 3 of 5 moves
  4. Harness engineering Self-directed · ai-dev-scaffold · 2026

    The bottleneck moved from writing code to trusting it. So I built the machinery that makes “works” something an agent has to prove, not claim.

    50 → 39 score inflation the harness caught in itself: a blind re-judge on identical evidence 4 of 5 moves
Colophon

This guide was built by the same harness it profiles — a generator writes, a blind evaluator scores it against a rubric, and a gate refuses the work until it earns a pass.

How it was made →