Thoughtly
Engineered core platform features for a Y Combinator-adjacent AI voice agent startup that raised $3M to replace contact center agents with AI.
Thoughtly is building the infrastructure for AI-powered phone calls — a no-code platform that lets businesses deploy human-like AI voice agents in under 17 minutes. The product handles everything from appointment scheduling to lead qualification to customer support, at scale, 24/7. I joined as a software engineer during the $3M seed round, working on-site in New York during a period of rapid product development.
The contact center industry runs on a broken model: 45% annual agent churn, long wait times, and enterprise software that costs more than the humans it's supposed to support. Thoughtly's thesis was that generative AI had finally crossed the threshold where voice agents could handle real conversations — not press-1-for-English phone trees, but actual branching dialogue that adapts to what a customer says. The engineering challenge was building a platform flexible enough for any industry while keeping deployment under 20 minutes.
Working within a small, fast-moving engineering team during the seed stage means every commit touches something that real customers depend on. My work centered on the TypeScript and PostgreSQL layer — building and maintaining the data models and API integrations that power the agent workflow builder. Thoughtly's drag-and-drop interface abstracts a lot of complexity: underneath it, the platform is managing call routing logic, CRM syncs, real-time analytics, and ElevenLabs voice integration. Seed-stage engineering means shipping fast, staying close to the product spec, and learning to make good tradeoffs under pressure.
Thoughtly closed its $3M seed round from Afore Capital, Greycroft, and Expansion during my tenure. The platform now processes millions of calls for businesses across healthcare, real estate, and insurance — with an average handle time of 50 seconds. Spending four months building production software at a company moving this fast compressed years of engineering judgment into a single summer.