Low-code solutions
Custom Power Apps and Power Automate flows that replace spreadsheet chaos and manual busywork — designed with genuine software engineering discipline: error handling, clear documentation, and long-term maintainability.
Adriana Cavazos
I build scalable low-code solutions and AI-driven systems for complex business processes.
Houston, TX
Software engineer by discipline, product thinker by habit — I turn messy business processes into intuitive apps, automations, and dashboards. I bridge technical design with hands-on execution, using modern AI tooling and low-code platforms to deliver fast, scalable solutions; built the way regulated environments need them built: documented, tested, handed off.
What I do
Right-Sized Solutions, Engineering Discipline
Data & reporting
Power BI dashboards and reporting programs that give leaders answers, not just charts. I've built program-level reporting used to run an enterprise implementation practice.
Solution design & implementation
From spec-first discovery to production. A decade of client-facing implementations — banking, ERP, manufacturing — means I ask the right questions before anything gets built, and I can explain the technical parts in plain English or Spanish.
Portfolio
Selected Work
Systems I Designed and Run
End-to-end applications and automations I architect, specify, and operate. I drive the system design and technical decisions while directing AI coding agents to execute and debug against my specs. Each project runs in a self-hosted production environment, complete with automated testing and documentation to ensure long-term stability.
Sage
A privacy-first personal AI assistant featuring persistent memory, local model inference, and dynamic cloud fallback.
FastAPI · Ollama · Qdrant · LiteLLM · Whisper · Piper · Home Assistant · Docker
Sage acts as a contextual assistant across my personal notes and documents, dynamically routing queries between local models and external APIs to keep private data secure. I defined the functional specs and architecture, directing AI coding tools to implement the retrieval pipeline, model-fallback logic, and system integrations. Integrated as my primary voice interface via Home Assistant, it has been running in production since July 2026.
Read the case study →Echo
A dynamic text-to-speech bridge syncing progress across e-book and audiobook formats.
FastAPI · Kokoro TTS · Kavita API · SQLite · Docker
Echo solves cross-media book tracking by converting e-books into audio on demand while maintaining a single shared bookmark. It reads my active page, generates offline speech locally, and writes progress back to Kavita to keep reading and listening in sync. I authored the state-synchronization spec and selected an offline audio architecture following a spike on cost and latency. Deployed in my self-hosted environment, it serves as my daily reader.
Read the case study →Drift
A privacy-first journal featuring local voice capture, full-text search, and granular privacy controls.
FastAPI · SQLite (FTS5) · whisper.cpp · Apple Shortcuts · Docker
Drift is a personal journaling platform supporting rich text, images, tagging, and full-text search. For quick capture on the go, a custom API connects to a smartwatch shortcut so audio notes are transcribed locally, keeping sensitive logs completely offline. I designed the data model, mobile ingestion endpoint, and security architecture, including a permissioned API that shares individual entries with Sage only when I allow it. Built to my specifications, it has been in daily production since launch.
Read the case study →MealPilot
A household meal-planning system with pantry tracking and dynamic LLM meal orchestration.
Node.js · SQLite · Ollama · Mealie API · Docker
MealPilot automates weekly family meal planning by analyzing pantry inventory, individual dietary preferences, and portion requirements to generate tailored prep plans. It features a model-agnostic generation pipeline that can run locally or route to cloud LLMs, syncing outputs directly with a self-hosted Mealie instance. I designed the planning data schema, prompt orchestration logic, and spec, directing the build to deliver automated batch-cook schedules in my self-hosted environment.
Read the case study →Additional Active Projects
- MoodLog
A private, local-first mood-tracking progressive web app (PWA) backed by a lightweight REST API. - Loom
An interactive-fiction engine using multi-model LLM orchestration, dynamic context management, and persistent narrative memory.
Client & Enterprise Work
Enterprise solutions I designed, architected, and built by hand within client and employer environments. Details and metrics are sanitized to preserve confidentiality.
Implementation Tracking System
- Challenge
- A growing enterprise implementations team managed client onboarding across fragmented spreadsheets and email threads, leaving leadership without clear pipeline visibility or bottleneck tracking.
- What I built
- Hand-built a relational Power Apps data model from scratch, authored automated Power Automate workflows, and designed live Power BI executive dashboards tracking cycle times and program health.
- Outcome
- Established a single source of truth across the implementations program, completely replacing manual status reports with real-time operational analytics for leadership.
API Integration & Product Feedback Loop
- Challenge
- Enterprise banking clients integrating complex treasury APIs faced integration delays, requiring deep technical alignment across disparate client developer teams and legacy stacks.
- What I did
- Provided technical oversight for API integrations (REST/JSON, Apigee, SQL), led architectural troubleshooting sessions directly with client engineering teams, and analyzed recurring implementation patterns to author core product enhancement specs.
- Outcome
- Accelerated time-to-production for client integrations while converting high-frequency technical friction points into prioritized product features for the internal roadmap.
Downtime Tracking & API Optimization
- Challenge
- A legacy manufacturing downtime-tracking API suffered from frequent database deadlocks and high network chatter, resulting in corrupted telemetry and unreliable operational metrics.
- What I built
- Refactored the API payload logic, optimized underlying SQL queries with resilient retry handling, and implemented structured logging and monitoring via Graylog.
- Outcome
- Cut network traffic by 5x, eliminated database deadlocks, and delivered clean, real-time downtime trend analytics for operations leadership.
Mobile Showroom Sales Application
- Challenge
- Sales representatives were forced to abandon prospective buyers mid-consultation on the showroom floor to manually assemble pricing quotes at fixed desktop terminals, creating friction and lost sales momentum.
- What I did
- Owned the mobile product lifecycle as Product Owner. Conducted user research, defined specs for mobile barcode scanning and real-time quote generation, managed the roadmap and backlog, and oversaw development through pre-release testing.
- Outcome
- Took the product from zero to feature-complete and App Store submission readiness, establishing the core mobile workflows, training materials, and rollout strategy.
Previously
Early production engineering work built across industrial manufacturing environments. These systems represent my foundation in custom database schema design, workflow automation, and line-of-business web applications.
Resource & shift management
- Line Scheduler React · Node.js · MS SQL
- Shift scheduling engine enforcing complex business logic including shift-overlap rules, skip-days, and holiday adjustments.
- Shift Catalog React · Node.js · MS SQL
- Interactive drag-and-drop timeline visualizer for defining shift templates, break intervals, and adjustable time blocks.
- Employee Skill & Training Tracker PHP · JS · MS SQL
- Workstation qualification engine mapping employee training records against live production eligibility criteria.
- App Internationalization (i18n) PHP · JS · i18next
- Dynamic translation system mapping database translation tables directly to localized JSON assets.
Operational systems & integration
- Incident Reporting System PHP · JS · MS SQL · JIRA API
- Hardware-linked reporting tool featuring serial-number system lookups, image attachments, and automated alert routing.
- Line Disposition & Approvals PHP · JS · MS SQL · JIRA
- Web-based request pipeline integrated with email-driven approval workflows using JIRA plugins.
- Downtime Analytics & Telemetry PHP · JS · Graylog · DevExpress
- RESTful API pipelines for downtime event logging, telemetry collection in Graylog, and visual dashboarding.
Method
How I Build: Spec First, Agent Second
I work across two complementary execution modes. On Power Platform, I build by hand — constructing data models, low-code logic, and analytical dashboards from scratch. In my self-hosted environment, I lead systems architecturally: defining specifications, structuring domain logic, and directing AI coding agents to implement and test against those standards. The strategic value lies in specification quality, prompt precision, and governance.
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1 Spec First
Every project starts as a structured specification, stress-tested with the AI itself: using models to challenge assumptions, surface edge cases, and pressure-test logic. The result is a solid spec detailing architectural decisions, entity-relationship schemas, and clear definitions of done.
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2 Rapid Spiking
High-risk technical assumptions are validated through small, targeted proof-of-concept experiments. Unsuccessful spikes are documented immediately to eliminate wrong architectural paths early.
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3 Directed Agentic Build
Agents execute code against the written specification. I conduct behavior-level reviews, verifying schema integrity, test-suite pass rates, and alignment with the acceptance criteria.
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4 Governance & Handoff
Every system ships with zero-context documentation, operational edge-case logs, and automated test coverage.
A system that depends on a single author is an operational risk. Built with specifications, automated testing, and clean handoff documentation, it becomes an enterprise asset.
Where I've Been
Career Timeline
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2022 – present
PNC — Technology Implementation Specialist
Lead design of enterprise Power Platform applications—built centralized intake request apps, workflow automations, and Power BI/Automate reporting layers. Guide clients through treasury API integrations.
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2020 – 2021
BBVA Open Platform — Technical Account Manager
Technical support for banking-as-a-service APIs. Managed AWS log analysis, Zendesk help center architecture, and technical documentation.
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2015 – 2020
Goodman Manufacturing — Software Engineer & Lead Test Engineer
Full-stack web developer (JS, React, Node, PHP, SQL) and QA lead. Built internal tools reducing network deadlocks and cutting traffic by 5x. Managed DevOps deployment pipelines (Docker, Jenkins, Ansible).
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2012 – 2015
Epicor Software — Product Owner & QA Engineer
Owned companion products for Eclipse ERP (including a public App Store app). Managed product roadmaps, wrote user stories, and led QA automation initiatives.
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2009 – 2012
Early career
Software test engineer and developer intern (IIDEA Solutions, Mexico & B.I.M. Consulting, Germany). BSc in Systems Administration Engineering, UANL.
How I do it
Skills & Certifications
Power Platform & Low-Code
- Power Apps
- Power Automate
- Power BI
- SharePoint
AI & Automation
- Agentic AI development
- Microsoft Copilot
- Prompt engineering
- AI-assisted solution design
- RAG & vector search
- Self-hosted LLMs
- Local STT / TTS
Engineering & Tools
- SQL
- REST APIs
- JSON
- JavaScript / React
- Relational data modeling
- Postman
- Git
- Docker
Product & Delivery
- Backlog management
- Requirements analysis
- User stories
- Agile / Scrum / Kanban
- JIRA / Confluence
- Client training & demos
Certifications
- Product Management Certificate
- AI Prompt Engineering Certificate
Languages
- Spanish · English — bilingual
- German — limited working
Off the clock
About Me
Outside of building software and managing systems, I'm spending time with my family and cats. I'm an avid reader (with a heavy soft spot for romance novels lately), and a casual 3D-printing enthusiast. When I'm not running a print or diving into creative tabletop roleplaying, you can usually find me listening to music or managing the self-hosted server stack that powers my household.
"I see life as a roller coaster, about which you never get to read a review. You never know when it is going to speed up or turn, and many times you don't even see the spins coming. Let's enjoy the ride."