I'm Michael Jay Lupos — a software engineer with 7+ years building full stack web applications. Take me on solo, or bring in my pod: a product manager, additional developers and a dedicated QA engineer, every one of them working with AI tooling. Small team, disproportionate output.
Pick the shape that fits the problem. If you're not sure which, describe the project and I'll tell you which one I'd recommend — even if that's the smallest option.
Just me, hands on the keyboard
You work directly with me as a senior full stack engineer. No account managers, no handoffs — the person you brief is the person who ships.
Best for: Focused features, audits, rescue work and short builds.
A team of 3–5 humans, amplified by AI
When a project is bigger than one person, I bring in a pod of 3 to 5 people — a product manager, additional developers and a dedicated QA engineer. Every member works with AI tooling, so a small team delivers at a scale that normally takes far more headcount.
Best for: MVPs, full product builds and parallel workstreams on a deadline.
Senior engineering judgement, part time
Architecture decisions, code review, and technical direction for teams that have developers but no senior engineering voice in the room.
Best for: Founders and teams who need direction more than raw output.
When a build is bigger than one person, I don't hand it to a faceless agency — I bring in a small, senior pod I already trust. Humans own the architecture, the product calls and the final review. AI takes the scaffolding, the refactors, the test writing and the research. That's how 3–5 people cover ground that normally needs a much larger team.
Owns scope, roadmap and stakeholder communication so the build stays pointed at the outcome you actually bought.
Full stack engineers shipping frontend and backend together, using AI tooling to compress the boring parts of the work.
Manual and automated testing on every release, so regressions get caught before your users find them.
One point of accountability throughout: me. You brief one person, you escalate to one person, and you get one invoice.
End-to-end product builds with Nuxt, Vue and TypeScript on the front, Laravel or Node on the back.
Taking an idea to a shippable, testable product without over-engineering the first version.
Adding genuinely useful AI capabilities to existing products — not chatbots bolted on for the demo.
Untangling codebases that have stopped being safe to change, and getting delivery moving again.
Test coverage and release confidence, run by a dedicated QA engineer rather than the developer who wrote the bug.
Architecture reviews, performance work and engineering guidance for in-house teams.
Straight answers about availability, the team, and how the work actually runs.
Yes. Michael Jay Lupos (Jay Lupos) is available for freelance and contract software engineering work, both as an individual engineer and as the lead of a small delivery team. Enquiries go to luposmichaeljay@gmail.com.
Both. He takes on projects solo as a senior full stack engineer, and for larger builds he brings a team of 3 to 5 humans covering product management, software development and quality assurance. Every role is AI-augmented, so a small team delivers more than its headcount suggests.
The pod is 3 to 5 people: a product manager who owns scope and communication, software engineers who build across the full stack, and a dedicated QA engineer who tests every release. Jay Lupos remains the single point of accountability.
AI is used as an accelerant, not a replacement. Humans own the architecture, the product decisions and the final review; AI tooling compresses scaffolding, refactoring, test writing and research. The result is faster delivery without handing judgement to a machine.
Primarily Vue.js, Nuxt.js, TypeScript and Tailwind CSS on the frontend, with Laravel, PHP, Node.js and MySQL on the backend, deployed on AWS. He also builds AI-powered features into existing applications.
He is based in Manila, Philippines (Asia/Manila, UTC+8) and works remotely. The team overlaps comfortably with Asia-Pacific and Australian business hours, with arranged overlap for European and North American clients.
Startup MVPs, full product builds, feature teams that need extra delivery capacity, legacy rebuilds, and companies adding AI capabilities to an existing product. He has shipped web applications across healthcare, disability support, property and social platforms.
Send a short brief describing the problem, the timeline and any constraints to luposmichaeljay@gmail.com, or use the contact form at https://jaylupos.dev/hire. The first response includes a recommended engagement model — solo, pod or fractional lead.
A short brief is enough — the problem, the timeline, any constraints. I'll come back with the engagement model I'd actually recommend. Working hours are Asia/Manila (UTC+8).