AI guidance for the people who build software

AI is changing how software gets built — and most teams are figuring it out alone. I help developers and engineering leaders adopt AI with confidence, from weekly analysis to hands-on workshops to strategic guidance, grounded in 25 years of production software experience.

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Published Author
Clean Architecture with Python
AWS
Former GenAI Innovation Lab Lead
Community
Portland AI Engineers, 1,100+ members
Track Record
150+ weekly editions

From signal to strategy

01

Newsletter

Weekly AI insights for developers

02

Workshops

Live, instructor-led sessions

03

Advisory

Scoped engagements for engineering leadership

04

In Action

Talks, courses, and events

Stay calibrated

Every week, I dig into what's actually working in the new AI abstraction layer so you can make informed decisions without drowning in hype.

Monday AI Review

Signal filtering—what matters this week in AI for developers.

Deep Dives & Insights

Tech Explorations & Industry Analysis. Go deeper than the headlines.

What makes it different

Production-informed, not demo magic
Written by someone who shipped code for 25+ years (ex AWS | Lululemon | Nike)
No hype — grounded in hands-on research and experimentation

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AI Strategy Advisory

Scoped consulting engagements with defined deliverables. I help engineering leaders make confident AI decisions backed by real production experience.

AI Readiness Assessment

Evaluate your team's current state and identify high-impact opportunities.

Tool & Platform Selection

Navigate the vendor landscape with structured evaluation criteria.

Adoption Roadmap

Practical, phased plan for integrating AI into your development workflow.

Architecture Review

Technical review of AI integration patterns and production considerations.

How it works

  • Discovery call to understand your context
  • Scoped engagement with clear deliverables
  • Hands-on analysis, not slide decks
  • Actionable recommendations your team can execute
Schedule a strategy call

Or email sam@alteredcraft.com to start a conversation.

In Action

Talks, workshops, and events — see the work.

“Clean Architecture with Python”

Interview on the GOTO Conferences channel about the book and building maintainable software systems.

Observability in AI — slide showing the antipattern of unmonitored LLM calls

Observability in AI

Oregon AI Accelerator

Screencast presentation on observability patterns for AI systems in production.

Watch on YouTube
Sam Keen teaching a RAG workshop to a room of developers

Building RAG Applications

Hands-on workshop teaching retrieval-augmented generation patterns with real-world datasets.

Sam Keen presenting at the Claude Code Hackathon

Claude Code Hackathon

Community hackathon bringing developers together to build with Claude Code.

View photos
Book a workshop or talk

Or email sam@alteredcraft.com

Sam Keen

Sam Keen

I've spent 25+ years building software at companies like Nike, Lululemon, AWS, and a handful of startups. I led the GenAI Innovation Lab at AWS, where I helped teams figure out what's real and what's noise in the AI space.

In 2025, I went full-time on researching how teams build with AI. Not building AI—building with AI. Understanding how these tools actually change the way we write software, lead teams, and ship products.

Altered Craft is where I share what I learn. Through the newsletter, workshops, and advisory work, I help developers and engineering leaders cut through the hype and build with confidence.

I also co-founded Portland AI Engineers, a community of 1,100+ practitioners exploring practical AI together.