Jona Heidsick

Founding Member · Full-Stack Architect · First-Principles Architect

I've been writing, shipping, and running software for 25 years. Full stack, from bare metal to frontend, across industries. The constant through all of it: strip the problem to its essential structure, build the minimum that actually works, then iterate. First-principles thinking, minimum viable architecture, Occam's Razor as engineering discipline.

I have a borderline obsession with clean code and a deep affinity for functional and declarative programming - immutability, composition, expressing what over how, and explicitness over magic. These aren't aesthetic preferences; they're how you keep systems honest at scale.

Today I focus on agentic AI systems, MCP integrations, and backend reliability - built on classical foundations: DDD, TDD, and continuous delivery. I was an early MCP adopter and have built multiple protocol servers. I've also worked extensively in blockchain (Algorand, NEAR, Cardano).

A recurring theme in my work is what I call "hacking the coding process itself" - engineering not just the product, but the way it's made. I think of AI through the lens of Extended Mind Theory: it extends the engineer's cognition, it doesn't replace it. That distinction matters when you're drawing lines around responsibility, authorship, and failure.

I co-authored and signed the ACG manifesto because craft needs defending - especially now, when the tools are powerful enough to make sloppiness scale.