Gerard Slee
Principal Engineer & AI Builder

Gerard
Slee

Architect-turned-engineer. I founded a VR startup, raised $500K, failed, joined the competition, and got acquired by Autodesk. Now I build AI-native tools in my spare time — including a full desktop app, AI assistant, MCP server, and website in a single weekend.

View Projects Resume Get in Touch
10+
Years building
$500K
Raised as founder
5+
Shipped products
8%
App Store conversion
As seen in
Autodesk University Beyond the Blueprint · XR for AEC · 2025 Fast Company Tenebris Lab · South Africa · Feb 2018 iXperience Teacher Spotlight · VR Course · 2017–2019
Featured Work

Products I've built and shipped.

AI Developer Tool · Open Source
Cairn
Local-first project management + AI assistant + MCP server

Entire product — desktop app, AI assistant, MCP server, and marketing website — shipped from idea to public release in a single weekend. Not a prototype; a fully featured open-source release.

Cairn is a local-first workspace: Kanban board, markdown notes, node canvas (Idea Flow), knowledge graph, live dashboards, and a built-in coding agent terminal. Agents read and write the same SQLite data layer as the human user in real time. The same tool is managing this portfolio project right now.

Cairn — project management workspace
Electron Next.js TypeScript SQLite MCP Vercel AI SDK React Flow D3 CodeMirror 6 xterm.js
1wknd
Idea to public release
4+
Products shipped in one go
Case Study GitHub Website
This portfolio was planned, researched, and built using Cairn — with an AI agent connected live via MCP.
Principal Engineer · Autodesk
Workshop XR
Enterprise VR for AEC design review

Autodesk's flagship immersive workspace — streams complex BIM models from Autodesk Forma to Meta Quest in real time. I designed and built the multi-level LOD system with depth-based occlusion culling that makes it possible.

C++ Unreal Engine 5 Meta Quest LOD Systems Occlusion Culling Jenkins
2–3×
More geometry rendered
∞
Enterprise AEC teams globally
autodesk.com/workshop-xr
More Work
Lux Walker
Unity · C# · Photon · Tenebris Lab · 2016–2020
Multi-user VR architectural design review tool — the product that led to $500K in seed funding from SAOTA, South Africa's largest architecture firm. Built with a team of 5 engineers. The commercial predecessor to Autodesk Workshop XR.
Pinch
Swift · SwiftUI · MCP · App Store · 2025
Consumer AI assistant. Natural-language Service Builder — describe a tool, an agent writes and tests the API. MCP support built in.
Pantry Sage
Expo · App Store · 2025
AI recipe and meal planning. Structured JSON responses, image generation, and local mobile databases.
Live Normal
Mobile · HLSL · AWS
Generate tileable PBR texture maps from camera images. HLSL shader conversion, Google Drive integration, AWS storage.
Experience

A decade of building at the frontier.

2022 — Now
Toronto
Principal Software Engineer
Autodesk — Workshop XR
  • Core team on Workshop XR — enterprise VR for AEC teams, streaming BIM from Autodesk Forma to Meta Quest.
  • Designed and implemented a multi-LOD system with depth-based occlusion culling in C++ / Unreal — enabling 2–3× more geometry on Meta Quest hardware.
  • Highest PR contribution rate on the project within a 20-person engineering org.
  • Retained post-acquisition of The Wild.
2021 — 2022
Senior XR Engineer
The Wild (acq. Autodesk)
  • Multi-user VR design review platform for AEC. Acquired by Autodesk April 2022.
2016 — 2020
Cape Town
Founder & Managing Director
Tenebris Lab
  • Founded VR studio; built Lux Walker — multi-user architectural design review (Unity, C#, Photon).
  • Raised $500K seed from SAOTA, the largest architecture firm in Cape Town, who became founding partners after piloting the product.
  • Led a team of 5 engineers through full product development and deployment.
2017 — 2018
VR Course Instructor
iXperience
  • Designed and taught a 4-week intensive VR development course for US university students in Cape Town.
2015 — 2016
Head of Visualisation
SAOTA Architects
  • Led real-time 3D visualisation at one of South Africa's most prominent architecture firms — the same firm that later invested in Tenebris Lab.
2010 — 2012
Berlin
Junior Architect
GMP Architekten
  • Design, rapid 3D prototyping, and visualisation at one of Europe's largest architecture practices.
Capabilities

Built across the full stack.

TypeScript C++ C# React Unreal Engine 5 Model Context Protocol Swift / SwiftUI Next.js Electron React Native / Expo Unity3D HLSL / GLSL Vercel AI SDK Google Gemini Anthropic / Claude CoreML React Flow SQLite Supabase GitHub Actions Jenkins CodeMirror 6 D3 Python esbuild xterm.js
ddutchie@gmail.com LinkedIn GitHub Resume