Solutions Architect · Remote

I own client engagements from discovery to go‑live.

Business problems in, working solutions out — scoped with the people who run the workflow, delivered with the vendors held to the numbers, and supported long after launch. When the job calls for custom tooling, I build it myself.

Ethan Lawinsky
25merchant portfolio managed — clients to $30M+ annual volume
100+terminals rolled out across a multistate dealership group
3 daysfrom discovery to a working intake‑to‑signature system
~1,000clients processed through tooling I built

01 · How I work

How I run an engagement

Every engagement I've run — from a multistate dealership group to a single law-firm partner — follows the same loop. Each step is anchored to something I actually did, not a methodology I read about.

1

Discovery

Alignment starts at the top; scoping happens on the ground.

I open with the decision-makers — chairmen, CEOs, chief compliance officers — to get everyone on the same page about what we've done, what we could do for them, and how we'll work. Then I sit with the leadership of the departments and teams we'll actually touch, and scope from there.

Receipt On a law firm's class-action intake, alignment was the partner's call — the scoping happened with the controller: which rep signed each client, and whether every document was viewed, signed, and approved.

2

Scoping & solution design

Define the capability required, then the most cost-effective way to deliver it — including pressure-testing the vendors.

Receipt Before a dual-pricing rollout touched a single terminal, I defined the invoice specs and worked directly with the client's DMS vendor to get the language and presentation right inside the system their staff already used.

3

Implementation

Manage delivery at a high level; get hands-on wherever it unblocks the schedule.

Receipt Configured and loaded 100+ physical and virtual terminals for one client; built a law firm's entire intake-to-signature pipeline to working in three days.

4

Enablement

A solution the staff can't run isn't delivered.

Receipt Multiphase rollouts — equipment install, on-site training, standing communication channels with onsite personnel — and controllers trained to own month-end reconciliation.

5

Post-launch ownership

Single point of contact. When it breaks, it's mine until it isn't.

Receipt When site constraints killed our connectivity plan mid-rollout, I sourced a new carrier relationship and re-specced hardware for redundancy — full story below.

02 · Case study — Refract Spaces, independent practice

Class-action client intake, live in 3 days

3 days to working ~1,000 clients signed Thousands saved in annual tool fees Hundreds of controller hours saved

The situation

A law-firm partner needed field reps signing up clients for a class-action settlement — immediately. Every document had to go out for signature, every submission had to be tracked, and the tool they were leaning on was about to start billing thousands of dollars a year.

Discovery

I mapped the entire flow with the partner and controller before proposing anything: what information reps collect, which documents needed signatures, where forms would be hosted — and, most important, what the controller needed to see to manage it: every new client, the rep they came from, and the live stage of each deal (viewed → signed → approved).

The vendor decision

Before switching anything, I negotiated with the incumbent e-signature vendor. When the numbers still didn't work, I moved signature capture to SignatureAPI — same compliance-grade result, a fraction of the cost. Cost engineering is part of solution design, not an afterthought.

The build

A shared link (or rep-entered form) captures client data; Apps Script pulls class-administrator data, prefills the firm's PDFs, and sends them through Resend for delivery and SignatureAPI for signature. Every submission lands in a tracking dashboard the controller runs day to day — delivered working in three days, using AI-assisted development to compress the build.

Try the flow

A sanitized, interactive recreation of the pipeline — fill the intake form, watch the engagement letter assemble, send it, and track it on the controller's dashboard. Sample data only; nothing is sent.

Open full-screen ↗

03 · Case study — Blue Sage Payments, Payments Solutions Architect

Dual pricing across a multistate dealership group

100+ terminals, physical & virtual Pre-sale through post-launch DMS invoice integration Dual-SIM redundancy save

The situation

A multistate dealership group needed dual pricing — card price and cash price — rolled out across their operation: on every terminal, and on every invoice their dealer-management system produced. I led the engagement from pre-sale through post-launch, inside a ~25-merchant portfolio with clients doing $30M+ in annual volume.

Solution design

Dual pricing only works if the terminal and the paperwork agree. I defined the invoice specifications and worked directly with the dealership's DMS vendor to update language and presentation inside the system their staff already used — no parallel process, no retraining around a new tool.

Delivery

Configured and loaded 100+ terminals, physical and virtual, then ran a multiphase rollout: equipment installation, staff training, and standing communication channels with onsite personnel at every location.

When the plan met the building

Mid-rollout, the client's IT policy blocked us from wiring into their LAN, and wifi couldn't reach parts of the service areas. First fix: cellular SIMs on T-Mobile — not reliable enough. So I established a direct AT&T relationship to deploy their SIMs, and re-specced a subset of terminals from Linux to Android hardware to run dual-SIM redundancy. Connectivity held from then on. The rollout plan is a hypothesis; the relationship is what lets you keep iterating until it works.

The relationship

This account wasn't just an executive contact — I worked with onsite personnel in the service lanes and sat with controllers to make sure month-end reconciliation was something they could run themselves. That's what kept the account healthy long after go-live.

04 · The paper trail

The work product

Sanitized deliverables from real engagements. This is the standard of documentation you get in week one — not after a reminder.

05 · Technical range

Deep enough to build it myself

Most solutions work is discovery, coordination, and judgment. When an integration needs depth, I don't hand-wave — I build. Tooling I've built when the problem required it:

More on GitHub.

06 · Day to day

Working with me

Tools of the trade

REST API integration · Zapier · Google Apps Script · Sheets/Excel modeling · Python / JavaScript / Node.js · AI-assisted development (Claude Code) · payments & merchant-processing domain depth.

Always learning

I love to learn — I think it's a cornerstone of a fulfilling life. Every engagement adds a new domain, a new system, a new set of people to understand, and the next client gets the benefit of all of it.

07 · Contact

Hiring someone to own client relationships and implementations?

I'd like to talk.