Dustin Sparks
Lead Software Engineer | AI Agents, Applied AI, and Production Systems
I build production AI systems that connect language models to tools, application services, business rules, and human workflows.
Patients, clinicians, and health coaches needed different help from the same product. I built the assistant platform they share, with a member assistant, a clinician assistant, and a health-coach assistant, each limited to the information and tasks that role should have.
Found
Clinicians were searching records and writing follow-ups by hand, and the notes varied from person to person. I built an assistant that brings up the relevant chart context and helps clinicians write clearer, more consistent responses.
Found
Prior authorizations were handled by hand by a very small team, from collecting clinical notes and insurance details through submission to insurers. I built the workflow that tracks each authorization through submission, status, and renewal, and pulls a person in for cases that need judgment, such as denials. I also added coverage and billing checks that show cash and insurance options on a member's medication timeline.
Found
Adding registered dietitian care meant a new clinical service the existing consult system was not set up for. I built the core pieces: eligibility checks, scheduling that matches patients with dietitians, visit documentation, and insurance billing for those visits.
Found
The consult system had been built for one kind of visit. As care expanded, the product had to decide what kind of visit a member needs, who can provide it, what can be covered, and how it is billed. I built that visit workflow, including scheduling, clinician queues, messaging during the visit, coverage checks, and prior-authorization tracking, with a handoff when a person needs to step in.
Found
Customers had to contact support to cancel. I built a self-serve cancellation flow that can offer a reason to stay, and a refund flow that follows the terms the customer agreed to.
Found,
I built the customer-facing assistant members use day to day. It helps with food questions, app questions, and meal planning, including messages that include photos, and it follows up after periods of inactivity.
Found
Members were cancelling before they had seen what the program could do. I built a churn model that showed which in-product behaviors tend to come before cancellation, and that informed product and outreach decisions.
Found
Clinicians spent a large part of every visit writing the note afterward. I added drafting support so they start from a note they can review and edit, which cut time per visit and reduced rework when notes were sent on for coverage and reimbursement.
Found
I built subscription management for web checkout and the mobile app stores, including keeping those records in agreement. Checkout later moved to a dedicated billing provider.
Found
I built a public assessment used to bring people in. I made the results change with the answers, added sharing, and stored the responses on the backend. I worked on both the front end and the backend.
Found
I rebuilt account creation and onboarding, including registrations that were left unfinished.
Found
I was a front-end engineer building a React design system and reusable components used across Edward Jones's internal systems, including money transfers, securities transfers, and financial planning and management features. I integrated the UI with existing backend APIs built by their internal engineers.
Consulting engagement
I was the technical lead on this engagement, focused on planning and delivery rather than writing code: breaking work into tasks, shaping requirements, planning the architecture, and running deployments, as the team shipped features on Sentara's existing content system and then moved it to Sitecore.
Consulting engagement
I led the front end and the team for Lowe's Canada's ecommerce site, staffing and planning the work and integrating its HTML and CSS into Sitecore, on a .NET backend.
Consulting engagement
As a freelancer, I owned this multi-year engagement on my own: a full-stack build on WordPress, with an HTML, CSS, and jQuery front end and a PHP/MySQL back end. After launch, I stayed on in a support role, fixing issues and building new page templates and landing pages.
Freelance
I led this greenfield build and put the team together myself, hiring the engineers and QA engineers and building the framework from the ground up. We started in Angular 1.5 to meet the initial requirements, and when it wrapped, Fannie Mae followed it with a rebuild of the same product in Angular 2. It was also the first project where I used the backend-for-frontend pattern. On the front end, I built custom extensions to mapping systems, from Google Maps to GIS and property-plot systems, plus the logic that identifies comparable properties within the map's bounds.
Consulting engagement
I led the front end for a small team building a fully custom ebook reader for the Kingdom of Heaven Library, in Angular 1.5. Readers pick up where they left off, search, save passages, and keep highlights and bookmarks beside the lesson. I also built account creation, access control, and subscription billing in Node.js.
Consulting engagement
I led the front end of the Mount Sinai site and the team of front-end engineers. I built the front-end design system and the page templates the CMS used, in HTML, CSS, and jQuery, including doctor search, the location chooser, the services list, and the news and stats sections.
Consulting engagement
I built a reusable quiz engine in Flash and ActionScript 3 for Treasure Trove Trivia, so people who were not designers or programmers could make new quizzes. The clues pointed at moments in Camel’s history.
BFG Communications
I built Camel Clone so people could find each other and open a direct chat. I made the Flash and ActionScript quiz and the portrait builder, and I wrote the C# service that compared those answers and started a chat with a match.
BFG Communications
I built the Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Company marketing site. The homepage carried the story sections, and the navigation reached the company, the product, the people, and giving.
BFG Communications
I built Mudpie Melee in Flash. Players pulled a catapult back for power, rotated it to aim, and released it to hit the targets.
BFG Communications
I built the EveryDrop storefront. Shoppers matched a filter from a refrigerator location or model number, or they browsed the catalog and added a filter to the cart.
BFG Communications
I wrote an HTML, JavaScript, and CSS engine for Fresh Match, a timed matching game, and I reused that engine on later games. I built it to move this work off Flash.
BFG Communications
I built Maze Moves and the HTML, JavaScript, and CSS engine behind it. A run started in a random spot, the maps could change, and artists could place pickups and draw paths without being locked to tiles.
BFG Communications
I rebuilt the earlier camel race as Camel Cup. I added new tracks and a freeform map editor so new courses could be laid out quickly.
BFG Communications
I built the Grand Hump Day Derby racing engine in Flash and ActionScript 3. Racers ran a track against a recorded ghost, climbed a leaderboard, and customized a camel, and I made new tracks easy to prototype.
BFG Communications
I built the Camel Mod Garage in Flash. Players set speed, traction, and acceleration, then chose colors and a saddle mark before they started a race.
BFG Communications
I built Mel's Holy Shiitaké Challenge for Mellow Mushroom, from the title screen through the game behind the play button.
BFG Communications
I built Campaign Trail in ActionScript 3 and Flash, on a tree-traversal engine I wrote for it. Players chose a route to Winston-Salem, and finished runs fed a rewards system for the year-long promotion.
BFG Communications
I built Smooth Operator, a Mello Yello quiz. I scored the answers, showed where that score landed, and let people share the result or pick up a ringtone or wallpaper.
BFG Communications
I built the PooYou site during a MediaSauce internship. I put up the poll, the product pitches, the newsletter signup, and the links into the downloads and the Facebook app.
MediaSauce
I built the leadership assessment on the Center for Creative Leadership site during a MediaSauce internship. Each question offered a choice, and the flow stepped through the set before it finished.
MediaSauce
Dustin Sparks