Extract all value from frontier models
From using a frontier model to actually improving your business, a lot of hard problems need to be solved. That's what we do.
Track record includes engineering leadership at Wildlife Studios, Prota Games, and high-growth AI startups
15+
Years Experience
PhD
Computer Science
2x
CTO
4
Production AI Platforms
The model was never the hard part — turning it into real results is. Here are the two gaps we close.
Judgment Automation, Not Demos
Anyone can get a model to answer in a chat window. Getting it to run the real decisions and workflows your business depends on — reliably, not just in a demo — is where most AI work stalls.
→ AI Deployment: Judgment Automation and Workflow Optimization — frontier models put to work inside the decisions and workflows your business runs on, as systems your team owns that improve cost, speed, and quality at the same time.
Moving Faster Than You Can Hire
AI moves faster than you can hire for it. Your team could already be building internal tools, reviewing decisions with AI, and shipping small software fast — if someone senior were leading the way.
→ Fractional CTO: senior technical leadership you don't have to hire — bringing you and your team up to speed with the latest tech.
Predictable engagement models designed to deliver strategic arbitration and execution without the runway-burning costs of a full-time executive.
AI applied to the business processes that matter — improving cost, throughput, quality, and time-to-market on multiple fronts. Production systems your team owns. Agentic systems and GenAI pipelines.
Fixed Price
Hands-on leadership to put your CEO and team at the state of the art — vibe-coded internal tools, decision audits, lightweight dev. Strategic judgment when the frontier moves faster than you can hire for.
Monthly Retainer
AI applied to real business processes — across fintech, AI startups, and media-tech.
YC-backed AI startup
Embedded with the founder as principal AI engineer. Owns the hardest AI problems in the product — designs, builds, ships, and stays accountable for what runs.
Result: AI features at the heart of the product.
Fintech
Hands-on construction of a multi-agent platform designed to automate complex B2B credit analysis and collateral structuring.
Result: Replaced manual analyst hours with automated multi-agent credit analysis — letting the company evaluate more deals, faster, without scaling headcount.
Media-tech
Served as CTO while personally engineering a high-scale agentic GenAI pipeline using Python and AWS to automate video rendering and AI dubbing workflows.
Result: Enabled a 50% reduction in localization overhead, allowing the studio to scale content globally with minimal manual intervention.
Lucas Machado is a principal engineer and founder of NeoQuest. PhD in Computer Science from PUC-Rio, 2x CTO (Prota Games, Mobjoy Games), and ex-Wildlife Studios — where he was the first engineer on the ML platform serving millions of daily players.
NeoQuest applies AI to the business processes that matter — cost down, throughput up, quality up, on multiple fronts at once. The agents do the heavy lifting. He handles the judgment — specs, architecture, code review, and accountability for what runs in production.
Recent engagements: Marvin (fintech) — built a multi-agent platform from scratch to automate B2B credit analysis and collateral structuring. Inventory Quant (AI startup) — embedded with the core team to ship AI features and platform work. Prota Games (media tech) — engineered a GenAI pipeline that cut localization overhead by 50%.
Based in São Paulo, on US business hours. Currently taking on a small number of new engagements per quarter.
Have a project in mind? Let's talk.