Systems Architect
Jackson
Jackson
Mathey
I find the structure underneath a thing and rebuild it so it holds — as software, automation and workflows.
Systems design and automation for founders and teams, through Spirit River Inc. Proof below: two production platforms I architected and shipped solo, and twenty years of studio work.
Recording, mixing, mastering and production for audio and picture. Twenty years of the original systems work: signal chains, sessions and deadlines that have to hold under pressure.
Woven Talon · NEILL · Trevor Hall · Chris Berry · CatNip Tea spiritriversound.com ↗
Photography
Time, made visible
The structure of time and space in nature, in long exposures of my own.
Working together
Systems design and automation
Most broken processes aren't missing a tool — they're missing a model. I work out what is actually happening underneath your operation, design the system it should be, and build it: software, automation and AI agents that hold up after I leave.
I run three businesses on my own on the strength of the systems behind them. Engagements run through Spirit River Inc., from a short architecture review to a full build. If something here resonates, start a conversation.
How I help
Systems design — mapping how work, data and decisions actually flow, and where they break.
Automation — workflows, integrations and AI agents that take the repetitive load off people.
Product builds — strategy through shipped, full-stack software.
Agent tooling — MCP server design, and vetting which tools are safe for agents to use.
"Learn a structure well enough to feel what's out of alignment before you can name it."
I'm a systems architect based in Santa Fe. On paper my path looks scattered — sound, the body, the image, software. From the inside it has always been one practice: learn a structure deeply enough to feel where it's out of alignment, then design what lets it move freely.
Sound
Twenty years at Spirit River Sound. Bringing a record into the world is a systems problem wearing an art form: signal flow, sessions, people, deadlines and release, all designed so the creative moment has room to happen and the finished work lands.
The body
Over a decade teaching anatomy and kinesiology and practicing craniosacral therapy and structural integration. The body is the most elegant system I know — tension, support and flow, where a change in one place reorganizes the whole. I developed classes, programs and training frameworks, and organized teachers into a cooperative.
The image
Real estate photography as a working business, and a long personal practice in long-exposure and time-lapse photography: images that make the structure of time and space in nature visible. Star trails, moving water and turning light are systems too; the camera just slows them down enough to see. The night sky and time-lapse behind this page are mine.
Software
I taught myself to code and architected two production platforms solo, Open Ephemeris and ELA Map — from data model and infrastructure to product and the business end. Today I design and build systems, automation and agent tooling through Spirit River Inc.
Each of these became a business I started and ran myself: the clients, the operations, the money, the marketing. That is where the architecture proves itself. Today I run Open Ephemeris, ELA Map and Spirit River Sound on my own, because I built the systems and structures that let one person carry all three.
What ties it together is care for the people inside a system. A good structure isn't imposed; it's found, then given a clear form so it can be used. Turning something subtle and hard to see into something precise and useful is the work I love most.