Koustubh Lapate

Solo Founder & Freelance Software Engineer

Building

firsteyes AI

Mar 2026 - Present

Growing it solo to 1000+ signed up users and 3 digit revenue, with $0 ad spend

Analyzes a website the way a real first-time visitor would - navigating public pages, interacting with CTAs, and surfacing the messaging, UX, and conversion friction that makes people bounce. Every report ships with annotated screenshots, prioritized findings, and specific fixes.

inteGPT

Sep 2025 - Present

A full AI design workflow platform for interior designers and studios, covering the process from brief to finished visual direction.

Experience

The Hog (YC F25)

Freelance Software Engineer

Dec 2025 - Feb 2026
  • Led end-to-end development of core platform features across search, enrichment, AI personalization, and onboarding, owning architecture, implementation, and production delivery.
  • Architected a multi-provider scraping and search infrastructure using a waterfall routing strategy, reducing web data costs from ~$2.9K/month to ~$430/month (~85% cost reduction) while improving reliability and fallback coverage.
  • Built a high-impact AI-driven Voice Profiles feature that analyzes LinkedIn, X, Reddit, and long-form content to generate personalized brand voices and tone, enabling high-quality AI-written replies aligned with each user's writing style.
  • Designed a scalable people enrichment and persona pre-filtering pipeline combining SQL-based hard filters and targeted enrichment providers, significantly reducing unnecessary AI classification and enrichment spend.
  • Shipped multiple high-impact product features including LinkedIn quote reposts with AI commentary, onboarding AI copilot experiences, and automated email workflows for user activation and engagement.
  • Improved platform stability and UX by resolving critical production issues, optimizing enrichment pipelines, and standardizing design systems across the app.
  • Collaborated closely with founders and product leadership, translating ambiguous product ideas into shipped, measurable outcomes in a fast-moving startup environment.

Mercor

Computer Science Expert, then Technical Writer

May 2026 - Jul 2026

Upwork

Freelance Software Engineer

Nov 2022 - Oct 2025
  • Developed 30+ reusable UI components using React.js, Next.js, TypeScript, and Tailwind CSS, improving frontend efficiency by 40%.
  • Enhanced website performance, reducing load times by 25% through server-side rendering (SSR) and static site generation (SSG) in Next.js.
  • Optimized JavaScript execution, reducing bundle size by 30% using code splitting and lazy loading.
  • Refactored and modularized legacy JavaScript codebases, improving maintainability and reducing redundancy.
  • Built RESTful APIs with Node.js (Express.js), implementing middleware-based request handling for clean, scalable architecture.
  • Created robust test cases using the React testing library, ensuring high code coverage and maintainability.
  • Maintained high code quality by enforcing ESLint, Prettier, and best practices, reducing bugs and improving team collaboration.

Braintrust

Freelance Software Engineer

Jul 2024 - Apr 2025
  • Designed and developed robust, reusable UI components in React, reducing redundancy and improving maintainability.
  • Enhanced frontend performance with efficient state management and optimized rendering, improving load times and user experience.
  • Wrote clean, well-structured code with comprehensive unit and integration tests, ensuring reliability and smooth deployments.

Writing

Contact

Open to collaborations, freelance work, and building websites, products, and startups. Email me at koustubh.lapate@gmail.com or send a DM on X or LinkedIn.