The 12-Factor Agent: Best Practices for Building Reliable LLM Applications
Dex from HumanLayer outlines 12 essential principles for building reliable AI agents. These best practices resonated deeply with my own agent development experience.
Full-Stack AI Engineer building AI Agents & MCP Servers
I'm Matthew Groff, Principal AI Engineer and AI Capability Lead at Umbrage, part of Bain & Company. Based in Orlando, FL, I ship AI agents and MCP servers that automate business operations with AI-enabled workflows. I turn AI concepts into measurable outcomes, cutting processes from months to minutes. I recently published my first eBook “Build Your First MCP Server” and share insights on AI engineering and web technologies through this development blog.
Office Hours: I hold monthly sessions to help teams tackle AI engineering challenges. Book a 30-minute session to discuss your AI Product, MCP Servers, Web Dev, Systematically improving your app with Evals, or whatever strikes your fancy. These times are odd because it's weekends and before and after my day job.
Professional Disclaimer: All content and opinions expressed here are my personal work and views. They are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or representative of Umbrage or Bain & Company. Groff Dev LLC is a separate legal entity that operates independently from my employment obligations.
Pydantic AI + Vercel AI SDK: My Favorite Tech Stack for Building AI Agents
How and why I combine Pydantic AI with Vercel AI SDK to build AI agents. Learn to connect Python Pydantic AI backends to TypeScript frontends with streaming, tool calling, and MCP servers. Example GitHub repo included.
Announcing My First eBook: Build Your First MCP Server
Today I'm excited to announce the release of my first eBook - a beginners guide to building Model Context Protocol servers that wrap existing APIs for AI agents.
Building a Simple MCP Server with Bun - Easily Wrap Any Existing API
Learn how to create a complete MCP server in a single TypeScript file using Bun. This tutorial shows you how to wrap the Petfinder API with OAuth authentication, making it perfect for both humans and LLMs to understand and modify.
Independent AI Consulting
- Company
- NextRep (Outbound Sales AI Startup)
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- AI Engineering Consulting
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Professional Experience
- Company
- Umbrage (Acquired by Bain & Company)
- Role
- Principal AI Engineer | AI Capability Lead
- Date
- Company
- Intrepid (Acquired by Accenture)
- Role
- Senior Digital Business Integration Analyst
- Date
- Company
- Batakang
- Role
- Android Developer / Owner
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