FAQ

Pivotal Engineering is a Seattle consultancy that builds AI into existing business workflows, plus the custom software, architecture, and data foundations underneath. Small teams of principal-level consultants. We add AI where it helps, keep humans in charge of the judgment calls, and leave what's working alone.

No. Pivotal Engineering, LLC is an independent Seattle consultancy founded by Steve Gregory. No connection to Pivotal Software (the VMware/Broadcom company), Pivotal Labs, Pivotal Commware, or any other similarly named firm. If you're looking for a boutique AI and software consulting team in Seattle, you're in the right place.

Steve Gregory founded Pivotal Engineering. He's a Principal Data Architect with 20+ years as an engineer, architect, and entrepreneur: two tours at Microsoft, a computer science degree from the University of Michigan, three patents. His recent work is architecting production AI platforms and leading the teams that build them.

Real systems, in production. Steve architected Rebode, an AI kitchen-design platform for a Fortune 100 manufacturer: generative design serving 30,000 monthly users, built by a team he grew from one engineer to twenty. He's also principal architect of PlebSpeaks, a civic-engagement platform with an AI validation pipeline (speech-to-text, LLM content rating, face verification) running in production.

That's where we live. Our team built KitOS, an AI operating system that runs a real multi-business back office: accounting, project management, research, and documentation handled by coordinated AI agents with human approval gates. We also built Caregiver Log, an AI-assisted care-coordination app a real family care team uses every day, with privacy hardening designed in from day one.

Yes. That's the core of the practice. We start with the workflow you already run, find the spots where AI actually helps, and keep humans in charge of the judgment calls. We've made those placement decisions on production systems: what to automate, what to gate behind human review, and what to leave alone on purpose.

We run on what we sell. Our development process uses role-specialized AI agent teams (planner, architect, implementer, tester, reviewer) working a supervised lifecycle. Independent AI models cross-review the specs and code, and a human approves every gate. It's how a small senior team ships like a much bigger one.

Yes. We build AI tooling for legal work, including a litigation-intelligence evidence platform a litigation team is using in an active case. Earlier work includes a HIPAA-compliant clinical scheduling platform for a global biopharmaceutical company. Regulated industries are where careful AI placement matters most. It's also where we're most at home.

Yes. When confidentiality or compliance requires it, we deploy models that run locally in your environment, so your data never leaves your infrastructure. Private deployment is also a low-risk way to find out what AI can do with your actual systems before you commit to anything bigger.

The people building your solution. No account layer, no handoff chain. The core team is three to four senior professionals covering architecture, data engineering, DevOps, user experience, and design. When you ask a question, the person who answers is the person doing the work.

Discovery first, until we actually understand your business. Then iterative development with transparent communication the whole way. We approach every project like founders building something that has to last, and we'd rather make your team stronger than make you need us.

Our team has shipped across 42 languages, environments, web and database technologies. The deepest grooves: Azure and AWS architecture, .NET and C#, Python, React and Next.js, SQL Server and Postgres, identity platforms, CI/CD, and production generative-AI stacks (OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google models, agent frameworks, pipeline engineering). We pick the stack that fits your system.

You get principal-level people instead of a pyramid. Big firms sell AI strategy decks and staff the work with juniors. We've shipped AI platforms, AI operations tooling, and the AI-assisted engineering process we use ourselves every day. Fewer translation layers, faster decisions, working software.

Use the Contact button at pivotalseattle.com. Tell us what you're trying to build or fix. We'll tell you honestly whether we're the right fit, and what we'd do first if we are.