Matthew Worner
Product Builder — Riding Every Tooling Wave for 20+ Years — Now Building With Agentic AI
Threading sprinkler pipe through Sydney tower blocks came first — a four-year apprenticeship (1990–1993) that taught me systems, testing, and getting it right when scrutiny is the whole point. Then the web arrived, and I chased it through the early 2000s before landing at Apple (2005–2011), directing teams of 15–30 across 56 countries and building launch playbooks that were later adopted across the wider international team. Agency work and EdTech followed (2012–2017), then I built Safe Supply (2021–2026) from nothing into a compliance platform running across NZ schools, drawing on 50+ site inspections. Now I'm doing it again: directing AI agents instead of people, same standards, same refusal to ship anything sloppy — and finally doing something I'd wanted since I first touched a computer: building and shipping my own software. ARP and Pocket Wombat are on the App Store; Moving Buddy is next.
Based in Sydney (North Sydney). Australian citizen.
Professional Experience
Five Tooling Eras
- 2000–2004 Early Web — Learned the first wave of tools (HTML, early CMS, web production) across early roles in Australia
- 2005–2011 Global Digital Platforms at Scale — Apple, London/Paris/Cupertino — 40+ launches, 56 countries, teams of 15–30
- 2012–2017 Agency, EdTech & Builder — Saatchi & Saatchi, GEMS Education, World Vision
- 2021–2026 SaaS Founder & Stay-at-Home Dad — Built and ran Safe Supply, a regulated compliance platform, full-stack
- 2025–Present Agentic AI Era — Shipping consumer apps (Moving Buddy, ARP, Pocket Wombat) by directing AI agents the way I once directed teams
Skills
Professional Experience
2025–Present — Era 5 — Agentic AI · Apps Built
Shipping consumer software by directing AI coding agents the way I once directed teams — full product write-ups in Projects below.
Founder & Builder — Moving Buddy
View on the App Store · Visit mymovingbuddy.app
Native iOS packing and home-inventory app. Photograph belongings before the boxes are taped shut; Buddy turns them into a searchable inventory with box numbers, places, groups, and a moving-day arrival checklist. Local-first, no account.
- Shipped a 1.0 release candidate end-to-end: capture (type / photo / voice), places & groups, Ask Buddy, exports, full .movingbuddy backup, Home Screen widget, and StoreKit unlock.
- Optional on-device photo identification via Apple Intelligence (with Vision fallback and optional local server) — inventory and search work fully with AI off.
Founder & Builder — ARP (Audio Revival Processor)
View on the App Store · Visit arpaudio.app
Private, on-device speech repair for iPhone and iPad. Import a noisy voice memo, interview, or lecture; ARP removes background noise, compares Original / Cleaned / Removed, transcribes both versions, and exports the cleaned file — audio never leaves the device.
- Rebuilt the product after measurement killed the original music-enhancement claim; shipped the RNNoise speech path that actually works.
- On-device transcription with Apple SpeechAnalyzer, free M4A export, Premium one-time unlock for unlimited cleanups and 24-bit WAV / AIFF.
Founder & Builder — Pocket Wombat
View on the App Store · Visit pocketwombat.app
Day journal for iPhone where each day is a pocket: calendar, reminders, and your own writing/voice/sketches in one chronological stream via EventKit — not a parallel calendar store. Paid once, no account.
- Shipped Timeline + Thoughts day model, Ask Wombat (Apple Intelligence or BYOK), Lock Screen pin, Day Journal widget, and eight App Shortcuts.
- Privacy by default: journal stays on device; sensitive live feeds off until opted in.
2021–2026 — Era 4 — SaaS Founder & Stay-at-Home Dad
Co-Founder & Product Lead, Safe Supply
Whangarei, New Zealand — Primary Caregiver Alongside Building The Business
Built water compliance SaaS helping schools and commercial water suppliers demonstrate regulatory compliance across New Zealand, based around primary caregiving. Product served schools, councils, and commercial water suppliers managing drinking water safety plans (DWSPs). Winding down in 2026 after the regulator paused enforcement of the underlying compliance mandate until 2028, removing the market obligation that drove demand — used the pause to rebuild the core engine with AI instead of shelving it, so it comes out the other side simpler and more capable than it went in.
- Co-founded Safe Supply and built it out through iterative customer discovery and regulatory domain learning.
- Secured incubator backing (Northland Inc.) and delivered investor presentations.
- Led full product lifecycle from concept to launch: user research, compliance requirements mapping, UX design, and go-to-market strategy.
- Designed compliance workflows that translate complex regulatory requirements into actionable tasks for non-technical operators.
- Conducted 50+ site inspections at schools across North Island NZ (Ministry of Education directed), including water systems, storage tanks, pump rooms, and distribution networks.
- Built using modern AI-assisted development workflows, reducing prototype-to-launch cycles by 60%.
- Applied Google Ads and SEO tactics to support client go-to-market and audience development.
Digital Platform Specialist — Client Builds & Contract Work
Independent Contracts & Safe Supply Client Work – New Zealand
Delivered end-to-end custom websites and transactional platforms across education and compliance sectors in New Zealand, managing timelines, budgets ($5k–$20k), and contractor coordination.
- Hands-on ownership of CMS implementations, e-commerce elements (forms, payments, workflows), content management, integrations, and migrations from legacy systems.
- Tackled challenging platforms under tight budgets and deadlines—optimised performance, reduced friction, drove user adoption and conversion.
- Technologies: React/Next.js, TypeScript, Node.js, Tailwind, PostgreSQL, AWS; plus various CMS tools (custom/headless setups, WordPress variants when required).
- Results: Streamlined compliance workflows, enabled multi-user collaboration, generated compliant docs automatically—direct parallels to ticketing/content optimisation in arts organisations.
2012–2017 — Era 3 — Agency, EdTech & Builder
Product Owner
World Vision – Auckland
Product Owner on fixed-term contract for Community Sponsorship digital product.
- Drove 23% increase in sponsorship conversions through sales funnel optimisation and UX redesign validated by Google Analytics.
- Developed product requirements, feature prioritisation, personas, and customer journey maps.
- Created rapid prototypes and high-fidelity designs (Sketch, InVision) that aligned stakeholders across marketing, tech, and program teams.
- Conducted competitive evaluation and A/B testing to inform design decisions.
Senior Producer
Saatchi & Saatchi – Auckland
Senior Producer on fixed-term contract managing digital campaign production including website design and mobile app development.
- Delivered projects for NZTA (Zero Harm mobile app v1.1), Toyota, ASB Bank, and NZ Elections under tight agency deadlines.
- Project managed app development for Sorted alongside day-to-day banner and landing page production.
- Coordinated design, development, and QA across internal teams and external vendors.
- Managed stakeholder expectations and scope changes while maintaining delivery timelines.
Project Director
GEMS Education – Dubai
Project Director for educational technology initiatives for international school network.
- Designed and produced edX MOOC course including learning objectives, assessment design, and multimedia content adapted from GEMS professional development curriculum.
- Built global repository of education assets mapped to diverse curricula across multiple school systems.
Career Break & Personal Projects
- Traveled extensively (40+ countries) for cultural perspective and language immersion.
- Purchased and personally restored a 400-year-old townhouse in Senglea, Malta (family heritage) — managed full renovation from structural repairs to final finishes, learning construction project management, budgeting under uncertainty, and hands-on building skills.
2005–2011 — Era 2 — Global Digital Platforms at Scale
Project Manager
Apple Inc. – London, Paris, Cupertino
Key member of the International design team managing US and UK product launches for iPhone, iPod, and iTunes across EMEIA region.
- Hired to manage Apple Education websites, promoted to join iPhone launch team in Cupertino
- Delivered 40+ global product launches on schedule across 56 country sites in 23 languages, maintaining 99%+ on-time delivery rate.
- Led core team of 15+ producers, translators, and QA specialists across multiple regions and timezones; scaled to 30+ during peak launch periods through agency partnerships.
- Developed localization best practices for visual assets and content; built frameworks adopted across international markets using Trados and WorldServer translation management systems.
- Managed quarterly and annual international budgets, prepared web analytics for conversion funnels and UX performance metrics.
- Drove CEMEA expansion (2009): established new translation agency relationships and localization workflows for emerging markets.
- Handled recruitment, performance reviews, and team quality assurance ensuring consistent delivery standards.
Web Producer
Sun Microsystems – London
Contract role, encompassing development and updating of global websites (24 sites across 16 languages).
- Completed website regeneration and rebuilding following branding changes.
- Communicated with web developers to directly support troubleshooting a variety of digital issues.
- Built dynamic and flat content pages, utilising JSP & XML, providing localised content across websites.
- Researched and designed Photoshop images and homepage features to encourage user engagement.
- Designed and implemented landing pages for promotions and events, incorporating registration forms and bespoke graphics.
- Reworked US-centric content to establish relevance to global markets via translation, page design, and copy structure changes.
- Introduced automated lifecycle management of content via creation of media releases and events.
2000–2004 — Era 1 — Early Web
Web Producer
Video Networks – London
Contractor position where my role was to produce content and assets for the HomeChoice (now Virgin Media) website.
- Regularly maintained websites on a day-to-day basis as content editor & webmaster.
- Provided consultancy, training and mentoring in core web-development skills to more junior developers and contract staff.
Senior Web Developer
Austar Communications – Australia
Managed the development of an in-house web-based application, used as an inbound web-based interface for logging inbound & outbound calls for Austar.
- Developing project plans and timelines, assigning workloads to development team.
- Writing and actioning UAT testing schedule.
- Compilation of weekly reports for senior management meetings.
- Compilation of written monthly project status reports.
- Internet troubleshooting for customer accounts.
Tutor
Griffith University – Australia
Working through my masters, I was invited to be a member of the academic staff to develop a new course offered on campus in Information and Communication Systems.
- Tutoring 20–30 full-time and part-time students.
- Design of teaching plans and learning approaches.
- Course counselling.
- Preparation of tutorials and subsequent print and presentation information.
Webmaster
Australian Correspondence Schools – Australia
Webmaster role whilst studying part-time.
- Planned, managed and created the web presence of Australian Correspondence Schools.
- Maintenance and upgrades of the 600 pages of website content.
- In-house magazine production – coordination and placement of photography.
1990–1995 — Career Foundations
Fire Sprinkler Fitter
Fireline, Viking Fire Systems – Sydney
Four-year trade apprenticeship across wet and dry fire systems, hydrants, and pump sets. Holds a current NSW Tradeperson Certificate — Fire Protection (12206J) — an unusual but genuine ground-level lens on regulated, physical-world problems that carried through into later compliance and systems work.
Education & Professional Development
- Google UX Design Professional Certificate – Coursera (2022)
- UX Short-Courses – Interaction Design Foundation (2016)
- Graduate Certificate in Art History – Birkbeck, University of London (2009–2010)
- Master of Information Technology – Griffith University (2003–2004) — unfinished, offered a job in London
- Certificate in Multimedia – Qantm, Brisbane (2001–2002)
- Bachelor of Communication – Griffith University (1997–1999)
- Fire Sprinkler Engineering Apprenticeship – Sydney TAFE (1990–1993)
Projects
Everything below was built by directing AI coding agents the way I once directed teams at Apple — briefing, reviewing, iterating to spec.
Moving Buddy
Moving Buddy (App Store: My Moving Buddy: Pack & Unpack) is a native iOS packing and home-inventory app. Photograph your belongings before the boxes are taped shut; Buddy turns them into a searchable inventory with box numbers, places, groups, and a moving-day arrival checklist.
Inventory stays on the device — no account, no analytics. Optional Apple Intelligence (or your own Ollama / LocalAI server) can suggest item details from photos and answer Ask Buddy questions. Free for the first 30 items; one unlock removes the limit.
The Idea
Before a move I fed floor-layout photos into Claude and got a multi-tab spreadsheet of 250+ items. That loop — photo in, inventory out — is the product. The enemy is camera + spreadsheet + ChatGPT + Sharpie, not another QR-on-a-box app.
Key Features
- Add items by type, photo, or voice
- Optional on-device photo identification (Apple Intelligence)
- Places, groups, box numbers, Open First essentials
- Moving-day checklist with arrival ticks
- Ask Buddy — find belongings in plain language
- Export Excel / CSV / PDF / photo ZIP
- Full .movingbuddy backup and restore
- Home Screen widget · optional Final photos album · app lock
ARP (Audio Revival Processor)
ARP is a private, on-device speech repair app for iPhone and iPad. You bring a recording that is hard to hear — a voice memo, interview, or lecture — and ARP removes the background noise, lets you compare Original / Cleaned / Removed, transcribes both versions, and exports the cleaned file. Your recording never leaves the device.
It measures background level first: already-clean audio is left alone and not counted against the free allowance. Free for 10 cleanups; Premium is a single purchase for unlimited recordings plus 24-bit WAV / AIFF export. No account, no analytics.
The Idea
It started as a music player with an enhancement chain. Level-matched listening tests showed the music claim failed — so I killed it and rebuilt around the one thing that measurably works: on-device RNNoise speech cleanup.
Key Features
- On-device RNNoise speech cleanup (no cloud audio upload)
- Original / Cleaned / Removed comparison switch
- On-device transcription (SpeechAnalyzer) with text / SRT export
- Skips already-clean recordings (−60 dBFS gate)
- Recordings up to 3 hours, streamed in chunks
- M4A export free; 24-bit WAV / AIFF with Premium
- No account, no analytics, no subscription
Pocket Wombat
Pocket Wombat is a day journal for iPhone where each day is a pocket. Timeline shows what’s in it — notes, calendar, reminders, and optional live context — in one chronological stream backed by EventKit, not a parallel calendar store. Thoughts is how you fill it: write, voice, sketch, or camera.
Ask Wombat summarises the day, extracts follow-ups, or answers a freeform question — Apple Intelligence on-device where supported, or your own Keychain-stored API key. Paid once ($3.99), no subscription, no account. The journal stays on the phone.
The Idea
I wanted one screen at 10pm that already knew what happened today — calendar and reminders pulled in, thoughts I actually wrote, and nothing quietly shipped to someone else’s server.
Key Features
- Timeline + Thoughts day model (each day is a pocket)
- Live EventKit calendar and reminders
- Write, voice, sketch, camera capture
- Ask Wombat — Apple Intelligence or BYOK
- Day Journal widget and Lock Screen pin
- Eight Siri / App Shortcuts (iOS 18+)
- Optional Notes tab and Dev inbox
- No account · paid once · journal stays on device
Spike is a weight block pager for large language models — it treats model weights the way an OS treats virtual memory, paging blocks in and out of RAM on demand, with a predictor that prefetches ahead of the GPU.
The thesis: run a 200B+ model on a 16GB machine by plugging a pager in as a blind memory layer any inference engine can use. Spike built that layer (MLX-native, ~3k lines of C11 + Python, bitwise-correct weights) and then rigorously measured whether it works.
Outcome: a measured negative result. On the real path, 97% of every token is weight I/O at wire speed and just 2.3% is GPU compute — a bandwidth wall, not a latency wall. Prediction was net-negative off the router, and raising residency was slower, not faster. The pager earns its keep only when coupled to routing (MoE), which a decoupled layer cannot be by construction. Corroborated by Colibri, a co-designed MoE engine. Closed out honestly with the method and numbers in FINDINGS.md.
Not every experiment works — Spike is a full write-up of one that didn't, and what the measurement process taught me anyway.
The Idea
I wanted to run a 200B model on the machine I already have. The OS pages reactively — after the GPU asks, not before — so Spike pages proactively, loading the next block while the GPU computes. The real contribution turned out to be the measurement method: instrument the hot path, break each token into cost buckets, and kill hypotheses with numbers. That discipline generalises far beyond this project.
Key Features
- Per-bucket profiler: 97% I/O vs 2.3% compute (measured)
- Zero-copy hot path (+13% measured)
- Background prefetch worker thread
- mmap and scatter-gather I/O modes
- Safetensor shard index (spike_index)
- Flat C API compiled as libspike.dylib
- Python/MLX bindings (spike_loader, PagedLayer)
- Bitwise-verified weight reconstruction + forward-pass parity
Human Blueprint
A spatial computing experience that reveals the pattern of human mark-making consciousness across 50,000 years. Not an educational tool or art gallery, but a mirror that shows users themselves as part of an unbroken chain of human visual expression.
The Idea
My art history thesis was all about the creation of new mediums and formats, so I started thinking how can I put that together to showcase all of the mediums humans have used. The tech is still not there for this and probably won't be for a few years, but it's a start and a way to kick things off.
Key Features
- 50 real images loaded from JSON (spanning 50,000 years)
- Modular positioning system (JSON, Spiral, Grid strategies)
- Efficient texture management with caching
- Mouse-based gaze detection with dwell tracking
- Dwell-triggered rupture system (3-second threshold)
- Generative ambient soundscape system
- WebXR support (VR button enabled when available)
- Visual feedback (glow, scale) on gaze
Nature's Calm vs. Humanity's Noise
A thought-provoking screensaver for macOS and tvOS that creates a powerful visual and emotional contrast between the serene, timeless beauty of our solar system and the chaotic, growing swarm of human-made objects orbiting Earth. Through cinematic 3D visualization, real satellite data, and subtle educational elements, the screensaver serves as both a meditative ambient experience and a quiet commentary on humanity's expanding footprint in space.
The Idea
On Christmas day my son was asking me about satellites, and we started digging into how many were around earth. Then I had this idea to take the retro screensaver and layer on the satellites as a way for people to see how many of them are up there and who owns them.
Key Features
- Real-time gravitational simulation
- Custom GLSL shaders
- Interactive particle systems
- Audio-reactive visuals
- Performance optimized rendering
Cortex
Cortex is an AI-powered visualization tool that makes neural network architectures accessible and understandable. It provides interactive 3D representations of deep learning models.
The Idea
I wanted to build my own Siri but to bring in health data and functional features like my task list and work / life schedule. It was something I started to tinker with after reading about VibeTunnel and thought there was something to play with here. It's been surpassed by OpenClaw, but that's cool—it was about seeing what I could build and bring in.
Key Features
- Interactive 3D network visualization
- Real-time training metrics
- Model architecture importer
- Layer inspection tools
- Educational mode with explanations
Contact
I'd love to hear from you. Whether you have a question, want to collaborate, or just want to say hello, feel free to reach out.
Email Matthew© 2026 Matthew Worner. All rights reserved.