Websites & AI · Avon, Connecticut

Modern websites and practical AI for Connecticut businesses.

I'm Diego González Cruz, a principal software engineer who builds AI products for educators. I bring the same engineering to your website, and to AI tools that take real work off your team's plate.

Tell me about your project See my work

Principal Developer at NISA
Co-founder of THINKey
M.Eng.Sc., PUC Chile

Services

How I can help

Two things I do well: websites that work for your business, and AI that's wired into how your business actually runs.

Websites

Websites that load fast and turn visitors into customers

New sites and redesigns for local businesses, built with the same engineering I use on production software.

Design and build around what your customers need to find
Content you can update yourself, without calling a developer
Local SEO foundations: structured data, fast pages, clean markup
Accessible (WCAG) and mobile-first
Contact forms and email that actually reach your inbox
Domain, hosting and analytics set up properly

AI for your business

Practical AI that does real work, not demos

I build AI products for a living. I'll help you find where AI pays off for your business, and build it.

AI assistants that answer customers on your website, WhatsApp or Instagram, and hand off to a person when needed
Automating repetitive work: quotes, lead follow-up, documents and data entry
Connecting AI to the tools you already use, like email, Google Workspace and your CRM
Honest AI strategy: where it helps your business, and where it doesn't
AI-assisted development workflows for software teams

How I help teams with AI

Selected work

What I've been building

Client work, the platforms I lead, and a few things built along the way.

Client work

Elite Landscape

2026

Website · Landscaping company in Avon, CT

Website and admin dashboard for a Connecticut landscaping, hardscaping and snow-removal company.

Service pages for every line of business, a project gallery and client testimonials, built for local search
Free-quote form that lands straight in the team's inbox
Admin dashboard where the team publishes projects, uploads photos and manages testimonials themselves
Link page for their social profiles with a one-tap Google review link

Next.js
TypeScript
PostgreSQL
Prisma
Better Auth
UploadThing
Resend

elite-landscape.com

If you're looking for someone who will make your team genuinely capable with AI rather than just impressed by it, I'd recommend Diego without hesitation.
“Rather than handing over a canned playbook, he sat down with us each week and worked through the actual projects on our plate — figuring out where AI genuinely added leverage and where it didn't.”
“With Diego's guidance we automated recurring reporting and review processes that previously consumed hours of manual work every month, and built dashboards and repeatable workflows that our team now runs on its own.”

Nelson Vieira

CPA · Strategic Financial Leadership

Client · July 2026

Read the full recommendation on LinkedIn

AI enablement for a finance team

2026

AI training & workflow automation

Several months of weekly working sessions with a CPA-led finance team, working through their real projects rather than a canned playbook.

How large language models work under the hood, how to structure Projects, and how to write prompts that hold up
Judging context and data quality instead of trusting whatever the model produces
Automated recurring reporting and review processes that used to take hours of manual work every month
Dashboards and repeatable workflows the team now runs on its own

LLM fundamentals
Prompting
Workflow automation
Dashboards

Platforms I lead

NISA

2025 – Present

Principal Developer

An instructional coaching workspace for teachers and coaches, with an AI coach built in.

Lead architect for the platform and its AI layer: agents with long-term memory, available on the web and over SMS
Designed a video-observation pipeline that turns long classroom recordings into rubric-based AI feedback
Enterprise single sign-on (OIDC), security hardening and production observability
Built the team's AI-assisted development workflow: specialized agents that take a ticket from spec to tested pull request

Next.js
TypeScript
Mastra
PostgreSQL
Prisma
Inngest
AWS
Vercel

nisa.coach

THINKey

2019 – Present

Co-founder

A STEAM education company for kids in Chile (science fairs, camps and school programs) running on a platform I built.

Operations platform: quotes and proposals, lead follow-up, scheduling and role-based access for staff, instructors and schools
AI assistant that answers families and schools on WhatsApp, Instagram and web chat, with a shared inbox for human handoff
School accounts so teachers can run THINKey programs in their own classrooms
Prototype that aligns lessons to Chile's national curriculum using embeddings

Next.js
Payload CMS
MongoDB
Mastra
Chatwoot
pgvector
Vercel

thinkeyschool.com

More projects

Live-TV voting platform · GO LLC, Hartford
HoopHall Awards voting
Led development of the voting platform for a televised awards show, with a CI/CD pipeline that kept real-time voting at 100% uptime through live broadcasts.
- React
- Node.js
- GitHub Actions
AI grading for Google Classroom
GradeSnap
Creates rubrics and grades student submissions with Google Gemini, integrated with Google Classroom to streamline teachers' grading.
- Next.js
- Supabase
- Payload CMS
- Gemini
Visit (GradeSnap, opens in a new tab)
AI SEO automation for an agency
SEO Tools
Generates image alt text with local LLMs (Ollama, LLaVA), converts images to next-gen formats and turns pages into PDFs.
- Next.js
- PostgreSQL
- Ollama
- LangChain
Visit (SEO Tools, opens in a new tab)

Recommendations

What people I've worked with say

From a manager, a consulting partner and the team I led at THINKey.

I highly recommend Diego as a skilled and motivated developer. He is highly skilled in modern frameworks like React and Tailwind, consistently delivering high-quality and scalable solutions.
Beyond his technical skills, Diego is highly collaborative and works exceptionally well with others.
Stephen Malloy
Interactive Director at GO · managed Diego directly · November 2024
I had the privilege to work with Diego, as he participated as an expert consultant in our client's project. Diego provided very insightful advice on EdTech in Chile.
Deby Chung
Codesmasher, a tech consultancy · worked with Diego on a client project · September 2020
I got to know him as an exceptional entrepreneur who is able to create solutions which others don't even dare to think of.
With his ability to inspire and motivate he leads his team to great success and revolutionizes how natural sciences are taught to kids.
Magdalena Prieler
THINKey · worked with Diego on the same team · October 2017

Read the full recommendations on LinkedIn (opens in a new tab)

About

From biochemistry to building AI products

I'm a Chilean software engineer based in Avon, Connecticut. My background is in science: a B.Sc. in Biochemistry and a Master of Engineering Science from Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.

I co-founded THINKey, a STEAM education company for kids, and today I lead the architecture of an AI coaching platform for educators. I also help businesses put the web and AI to work.

AI

Mastra · LLM agents & tools · RAG / pgvector · OpenAI · Claude · Gemini · LangChain · Ollama

Web

Next.js · React · TypeScript · Tailwind CSS · Payload CMS · WordPress

Backend & data

Node.js · PostgreSQL · Prisma · MongoDB · Supabase · Inngest

Cloud & quality

AWS · Vercel · Railway · GitHub Actions · Playwright · WCAG · OIDC / SSO

2026 – Present
Websites & AI consultant · Independent · Avon, CT
Client websites and hands-on AI enablement: a website and admin dashboard for a Connecticut landscaping company, and AI training plus automated reporting for a finance team.
2025 – Present
Principal Developer · NISA
Lead architect of an AI coaching workspace for educators: AI agents, security, SSO and the team's AI-assisted workflow.
2019 – Present
Co-founder · THINKey
Built and run the platform behind a STEAM education company in Chile, from e-commerce and online courses to operations and AI.
2024
AI-Enabled Software Developer (contract) · Sideby.ai
Event-driven real-time chat and AI features, working directly with the CEO and CTO.
2023 – 2024
Web Developer · GO LLC · Hartford, CT
Live-TV voting platform, LLM-generated alt text across WordPress sites, and Node.js services.

Contact

Let's talk about your project

Tell me a bit about your business and what you need. I'm based in Avon, CT and work with businesses across Connecticut, in person or remotely. Prefer email? Write to diego@thinkey.us.