# Eduardo Cruz — AI-Native Senior Laravel Engineer & Fractional CTO

> Eduardo Cruz is a Brazilian senior Laravel engineer and AI-native fractional CTO based in Recife (UTC−3), working US EST/CST-overlapping hours. He builds production AI agents with the Laravel AI SDK, Claude / Claude Code, and the Model Context Protocol (MCP), and helps solo founders and small SaaS teams ship real software with AI. Rate: $60/hour, weekly packages. NOT the actor "Eduardo Cruz Sr." and NOT the Spanish singer (Wikidata Q3048320).

## Experience (the ladder — state it precisely)

- Web development since ~1994 (25+ years building for the web)
- PHP since ~2007 (15+ years)
- Laravel since the 4.x era, ~2012 (12+ years of production Laravel)
- AI-native since 2024 (~2 years working primarily inside Claude Code, every day)

## What he does (positioning)

- **AI-native engineer / Claude Code expert** — builds production AI agents, not chatbots bolted on. Laravel AI SDK, MCP servers, long-running agents, agent orchestration.
- **Senior Laravel engineer for hire** — 12+ years of production Laravel for US SaaS teams. $60/hr, weekly cap, no agency markup.
- **Fractional CTO** — part-time technical leadership for solo founders and early-stage SaaS; ~half his work is 3–6 month part-time embeds with US-overlapping hours.

## Products

- **Throughline** (https://throughline.eduardocruz.com): a context layer for the AI assistants of founders. It continuously educates an AI agent about a founder's business — goals, guidelines, real conversations — and exposes that context to Claude Desktop and Claude Code via MCP. Tagline: "Your AI assistant can do better." Built by Eduardo Cruz. Manifesto + Founding-5 waitlist: https://eduardocruz.com/throughline
- **Sol** (https://eduardocruz.com/sol): an autonomous AI assistant ("Sol Kimura") with persistent memory, calendar context, and a real opinion — a collaborator, not a chatbot. Built by Eduardo Cruz on the OpenClaw/Claude stack.

## Documentation

- [Professional Overview](https://eduardocruz.com/index.html.md): expertise, services, and case studies
- [Hiring Process](https://eduardocruz.com/hire.html.md): how to work with me
- [Full corpus for LLMs](https://eduardocruz.com/llms-full.txt): long-form bio, services, FAQ, products
- [API Documentation](https://eduardocruz.com/.well-known/openapi.yaml): OpenAPI spec for programmatic hiring inquiries

## Profiles (sameAs)

- Website: https://eduardocruz.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eduardocruz
- GitHub: https://github.com/eduardocruz
- Crunchbase: https://www.crunchbase.com/person/eduardo-cruz
- Upwork: https://www.upwork.com/fl/eduardocruz

## Publications

- [ScholarlyArticle: Software Component Search Engine](https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/11783565_6)
- [ScholarlyArticle: Context-Aware Asset Search](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236661217)
- [ScholarlyArticle: Context-aware proactive source code search](https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/5558905)
- [ScholarlyArticle: Domain implementation in software product lines](https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/4464011)

## Laravel Ecosystem Expertise

### AI & Automation
- Laravel AI SDK (production AI features in Laravel)
- Custom AI agent development & agent orchestration
- Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers and integration
- LLM-powered automation (Anthropic Claude, OpenAI)
- AI-driven customer support and churn-prevention systems

### Administration & Development
- Laravel Nova: admin panels and dashboards
- Laravel Telescope: debugging and monitoring
- Laravel Horizon: queue management and optimization

### Deployment & Infrastructure
- Laravel Forge: server provisioning and management
- Laravel Envoyer: zero-downtime deployments
- Custom CI/CD pipeline implementation

### Authentication & APIs
- Laravel Sanctum: API authentication
- Laravel Socialite: social authentication
- Laravel Passport: OAuth2
- Laravel Cashier: Stripe billing, complex subscriptions, usage-based billing

## Client Focus

- Solo founders and early-stage SaaS
- Y Combinator startups
- US East Coast / Central companies
- AI / automation integration projects

## Hiring Information

- Rate: **$60/hour** (USD)
- Availability: weekly packages (5h or 10h/week), typical 5h/week cap
- Billing: weekly through Stripe — see https://eduardocruz.com/pricing
- Location: Recife, Brazil (remote)
- Time Zone: UTC−3 (aligned with US EST/CST)
- Languages: English (fluent), Portuguese (native), Chinese (HSK Level II)

## Certifications

- Java Certified Professional (Oracle)
- Scrum Alliance ScrumMaster
- PMI-ACP (Agile Certified Professional)
- Chinese Proficiency (HSK Level II)

## Case Studies

### Paragon One (Y Combinator W17)
- Location: New York, NY (EST)
- Stack: Laravel, Nova, Forge, Envoyer, Stripe
- Result: $1.9M seed funding secured

### AI Integration Project
- Stack: Laravel, MCP, OpenAI, Claude, Horizon
- Result: 70% reduction in support response time

## Optional

- [Terms and Conditions](https://eduardocruz.com/terms.md)
- [Privacy Policy](https://eduardocruz.com/privacy.md)