A senior software engineer for Austin startups that need to ship
Fixed-price MVP sprints, Next.js and Laravel builds, AI features and launch readiness for Austin founders, with the start of your Central-time day in my evening.
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Why Austin teams bring me this work
If you're founding a company in Austin, you probably want two things at once: a first version in customers' hands soon, and a codebase you won't have to rewrite after the seed round. An MVP sprint gives you both: a scoping week, a fixed price, dates fixed after scoping, and a product on Next.js or Laravel built by someone who has kept a platform up under campaign-day load. If launch day is the risk, a readiness review finds what breaks before your customers do.
What teams across the United States bring me
- You need a production-grade first version before your next raise, and hiring a senior engineer full time would take longer than building it.
- Enterprise buyers send security questionnaires, and the number of state privacy laws keeps growing.
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The hours we share with Austin
Austin is on Central time: your 09:00 is 20:30 in Mumbai in winter and 19:30 in summer, an hour later than New York's. A short call at the start of your day lands in my evening; demos are recorded, and every sprint week ends with a written summary of what shipped and what's next.
Each city's 09:00–18:00 working day on the clock in Mumbai (UTC+5:30), in January and in July, so daylight saving is accounted for.
| City | In January | In July |
|---|---|---|
| AustinUTC−6 / UTC−5 | 20:30–05:30 (next day) | 19:30–04:30 (next day) |
Clocks Daylight saving time runs from 2:00 a.m. local time on the second Sunday in March to 2:00 a.m. on the first Sunday in November (15 U.S.C. 260a). India keeps one clock all year, so only your side moves.
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Rules a Austin team's software meets
Texas Data Privacy and Security Act
The Texas Data Privacy and Security Act took effect on 1 July 2024. It applies to companies that conduct business in Texas, or produce a product or service consumed by Texas residents, and that process personal data. Small businesses as defined by the federal SBA are generally exempt, but must get consent before selling sensitive data.
Source: Texas Attorney General: Texas Data Privacy and Security Act
Enforcement
The Texas Attorney General has exclusive authority to enforce the Act. A company gets written notice and thirty days to cure before an enforcement action, and penalties reach $7,500 per violation.
Source: Texas Attorney General: Texas Data Privacy and Security Act
Universal opt-out
Since 1 January 2025, Texas controllers must honour opt-outs sent through technology such as a browser setting or extension, or a global device setting, when the consumer and the agent can be verified with commercially reasonable effort (Business & Commerce Code § 541.055(e)).
An AI law, from 2026
The Texas Responsible Artificial Intelligence Governance Act (HB 149, 89th Legislature), which regulates the use of artificial intelligence systems in Texas and provides civil penalties, took effect on 1 January 2026.
Across the United States: State privacy laws · SOC 2 and security questionnaires
This is engineering guidance, not legal advice: confirm what applies to your business with your counsel.
Further reading
- Article: How long a SaaS MVP takes: the method, not a number · 10 October 2026
Why any single number for an MVP is a guess, what actually decides the time, the published time-boxes product teams use, and how to fix dates you can keep.
- Article: US state privacy laws and Global Privacy Control: a guide for engineers · 11 October 2026
Which regulators say a business must honour the GPC signal, what the Sec-GPC header means in code, and the consent and data-request plumbing around it.
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Contracts and invoicing
Invoices in US dollars, monthly or per milestone, paid through Wise or Payoneer. I can work under your master services agreement and statements of work, with intellectual property assigned to you, and provide a W-8BEN.
More on working with teams in the United States is on the United States page.
Tax and legal treatment depends on your company and country: confirm it with your accountant or counsel.
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Where Austin teams usually start
MVP Sprint
A production-grade first version of your product, at a fixed price and on dates fixed after the scoping week.
- Price
- Fixed price, agreed at the end of the scoping week
- Timeline
- Set at the end of the scoping week
Next.js development and migration
Fast, indexable front ends: new Next.js builds, and migrations from single-page React or PHP templates without losing search traffic.
- Price
- Fixed quote after the inventory
- Timeline
- Planned after an inventory of routes and templates
Laravel development and upgrades
Laravel applications and APIs built, upgraded and kept current by an engineer whose main stack is Laravel.
- Price
- Fixed quote per stage after reading the code
- Timeline
- Scoped on a first call; upgrades are planned one major version at a time
Launch-day readiness
Your biggest day shouldn't be your first real load test.
- Price
- Fixed price for readiness; on-call cover priced per day
- Timeline
- Best started well before the event
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Case studies
- Case study: InfluencerX · Real-time voting platform
- users over the campaign
- 1.6M+
- Case study: Exhibit Social · B2B SaaS platform
- influencers indexed
- 10,000+
- Case study: Digital Wardrobe · AI pipeline
- average time per image, upload to result
- 3–8 s
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Questions from Austin teams
What hours do we share with Austin?
Your 09:00 is 20:30 in Mumbai from early November to mid-March and 19:30 the rest of the year. A short call at the start of your day fits in my evening, and the sprint runs on written updates and recorded demos in between.
Which Texas rules apply to a startup's app?
The Texas Data Privacy and Security Act applies to companies that do business in Texas or serve its residents and process personal data; small businesses as the SBA defines them are generally exempt, but still need consent to sell sensitive data. Since 1 January 2025 it also means honouring browser and device opt-out signals, and the Texas Responsible Artificial Intelligence Governance Act has regulated AI systems used in Texas since 1 January 2026. Confirm what applies with your counsel.
Do you have an office in Austin?
No. I work remotely from Mumbai, with no office or staff in Austin, and I don't offer in-person meetings there. The sprint's scoping week happens on video and in a shared document.
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