Senior Software Engineer / Solutions Architect

Tai Vu

Senior engineer with 15 years across enterprise systems analysis, offshore-delivery leadership, and full-stack product engineering, and a 2025 Graduate Certificate in Artificial Intelligence. Currently building agentic infrastructure and same-day AI applications on Next.js, Cloudflare, and the Anthropic / Gemini APIs.

Melbourne, AU · Open to work · Hybrid / Remote

tai@trendai.au · linkedin.com/in/tristan-v

116 components in production

3 ventures running

15 years across roles

8 months solo to v1

Summary

Hands-on engineer comfortable across the full stack — from system architecture and infrastructure (OCI, Cloudflare, Tailscale, Docker) through backend (Python / FastAPI / Postgres) to modern frontend (Next.js / Astro / React / TypeScript). Graduate Certificate in Artificial Intelligence (La Trobe, 2025) on top of a 15-year career spanning the Australian Taxation Office, offshore-delivery leadership, independent consulting, and three current ventures.

Selected projects

TrendAI OS — agentic infrastructure

Self-built operating system for solo founders: 5+1 architecture layers — substrate (OCI + Cloudflare + Tailscale), multi-LLM reasoning kernel (Claude + Gemini + self-hosted Qwen), Postgres + Supabase memory, four n8n orchestration instances, Claude Code agent team, BUD operator cockpit. 116 components live in production. Solo-built over 8 months and documented as binding doctrines.

OCICloudflareAnthropicGeminin8nSupabaseTailscale

Live: trendai.au

TrendAI Knowledge Engine — multi-source AI ingest

Four-workflow n8n pipeline ingesting YouTube transcripts, articles, and inbound email. AI-summarised with Gemini 2.5 Flash, persisted to Supabase, surfaced in an Astro 5 reading UI. Shared Summarise+Save sub-workflow keeps it DRY. End-to-end in one engineer-week.

n8nGeminiSupabaseAstro 5

Live: tube.trendai.au

fastapi-s07 — self-hosted AI content stack

FastAPI gateway fronting ComfyUI/Flux (image), Kokoro TTS (voice), Mermaid CLI (diagrams), Podcastfy (multi-voice podcast), and PaddleOCR — all on one OCI ARM box, called by n8n via webhooks. Replaces roughly $200/month of SaaS APIs.

FastAPIComfyUIKokoroPaddleOCROCI ARMDocker

BUD — operator cockpit on Cloudflare Pages

The operator dashboard for TOS: Cloudflare Pages + CF Access portal with eight modules — resource registry (121 items), sprint tracker, regression monitor, mobile-operator manual, weekly ops summaries, media library. Reads Supabase + Postgres; SSO-gated.

Next.jsCloudflare PagesCF AccessSupabasePostgres

Career history

2026 – present

Founder · AI-driven agile development

TrendAI — Melbourne

Built TrendAI OS solo over eight months: a 5+1 layer agentic operating system now running three of my own ventures end-to-end. 116 production components, four n8n instances, multi-LLM kernel, BUD operator cockpit. The agile loop itself runs on the system — sprint planning, time-logging, retrospectives, and deploys are AI-driven; I direct rather than execute. Consulting on agentic infrastructure for other solo founders and small teams.

2018 – 2023

Building industry + import/export operator roles

Melbourne / Ho Chi Minh City

Tan Minh Chau Glass Pty Ltd (late 2022 – Sep 2023, HCMC) — Managing Director, with equity. P&L ownership of a glass processing and supply business serving the Vietnamese market.
Baxa Maintenance (2021 – end 2022, Melbourne) — Operator. Partner and co-owner of a home renovation and maintenance business.
Independent building & renovation consultant (~2020 – 2021, Melbourne) — Self-employed. Hybrid flooring, kitchen and bathroom renovation.
Home and Commercial Builder (HCB) (~2020, Melbourne) — Co-founder. Co-founded a residential and commercial building venture.
K1 Homes Construction (2018 – ~2020, Melbourne) — Intern → administration. Entry into the building industry.

2014 – 2017

Hospitality venture + independent software consulting

Melbourne

Co-founded and ran a Melbourne restaurant with two partners — the operating role, not a silent stake. Independent software consulting ran alongside it, across mobile and web development, SaaS, LAN setup, and outsourced delivery management. The hospitality venture ultimately closed.

2009 – 2014

Business systems analysis, project management, offshore delivery

Enterprise + offshore delivery

Simbient (2013–2014, Ho Chi Minh City — client in Sydney) — Scrum Master / Business Analyst. Led the offshore Vietnam team from HCMC for a Sydney mortgage-finance client; introduced Lean Agile.
4impact (2012–2013, Ho Chi Minh City — company in Brisbane) — Development Coordinator. Led the Vietnam dev team in a blended AU/VN delivery model; capability building and team training. A continuation of the Trend Consulting subsidiary, which moved across.
Trend Consulting Pty Ltd (Jun 2011–2012, Melbourne / HCMC) — Product Owner / Delivery Manager / Business Analyst. Co-managed the HCMC insourcing subsidiary delivering e-commerce systems for the Australian parent.
Australian Taxation Office (2009–2011, Canberra → Melbourne) — Graduate IT intake, then Automation Tester → QA Tester → Business System Analyst → System Analyst / Architect. Worked on cross-government authentication (ATO AUSkey), enterprise identity, and SharePoint-based collaboration.

Dec 2004 – 2007

Co-founder · Full-stack engineering & server admin

Seki IT Pty Ltd — Ho Chi Minh City

Co-founded an online services company and built the team in HCMC from the end of 2004. Built and operated a file-hosting service end-to-end — designed bandwidth load-balancing across ~10 servers, grew to 1,000+ active paid subscribers. Server administration on PHP/Apache, PayPal integration, audio/video encoding. The company operated to early 2007. Separately built and curated bennhac.com, a Vietnamese music and literature community that reached the Alexa global top-1000 in 2006.

Education & credentials

La Trobe University

Graduate Certificate in Artificial Intelligence

Jul 2024 – Jun 2025

Swinburne University of Technology

Bachelor of Engineering, Telecommunications and Internet Technologies

Feb 2000 – Nov 2004 · Third Class Honours

Industry Based Learning placement: Junior Research Scientist, Defence Science and Technology Organisation (Adelaide, mid 2002 – mid 2003) — built Java proof-of-concept tools for an in-house fact-extraction system; authored evaluation reports on emerging information-extraction software.