About SignalWorks

We left bigger companies to build the AI department we wished existed.

SignalWorks is a senior-led AI engineering studio in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area. We build, deploy, and maintain custom AI systems for small businesses, founder-led brands, and agencies. The people who scope your build are the ones who build it.

Who you work with

Senior-built is not a tagline. It is the operating model: the founders scope, build, and ship the work themselves.

Trenton Johnson

Co-founder, Engineering

Former Product Manager at PayPal and a Yale computer science graduate. Left to build AI systems that run in production, not ones that only demo well. That is still the bar: systems a business can depend on from day one, built for real use, real data, and real teams.

Jahleel Heath

Co-founder, Product

Built and led product strategy for an enterprise K-12 SaaS platform, from architecture to launch. Background in NIL marketing, brand activation, and nonprofit operations. Finds where AI creates real value inside a business, then makes sure the systems actually get used.

How working together starts

No long sales cycle. The first real value shows up on the first call.

A short discovery questionnaire

Ten minutes, sent before we talk, so the first call is about your business and not your tech stack.

A free opportunity audit

A 45 to 60 minute call where we map where AI would actually save you time or money. You leave with a written roadmap whether you hire us or not. No follow-up pitch.

A scoped build

We build the thing, ship it in your own infrastructure, and hand it over with a walkthrough, a runbook, a training session, and 30 days of support. Two to six weeks for most builds.

An ongoing AI department, if you want one

Most clients keep us on by the month after the first build. The code lives in your repository either way. The work is yours.

When we are not the right fit

The fastest way to trust a team is to hear who they turn away.

You want the cheapest option. We are not the budget choice, and a client who picks on price alone was never the right fit for us.

You need a media buyer or an ad agency. We build the AI engineering layer that those teams cannot deliver alone. We do not run paid campaigns.

You want a demo that wows in the room. We optimize for what holds in production, which is a different and less flashy thing.

You need a vendor you never speak to again. We hand off and train, and most of our work is with clients we stay close to.

If you are not sure whether your problem fits, reach out anyway. The worst outcome is a 30-minute call that is not a match, and you still leave with a roadmap.

The basics

Founded

2025

Based in

Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area.

Built to

NIST AI RMF, OWASP LLM Top 10, ABA Rule 1.6, AICPA SSTS 1.4

Want to talk through what we could build?

A 30-minute call is enough to know if we are a fit. You leave with a roadmap either way.

Book an intro call

Or send us a note at [email protected]

Keep exploring

Our Approach

Our Work

What we build