Daniel Halper

Product engineer · Los Angeles

I design and build AI products, end to end.

Co-founder and Head of Product & Technology at Step Up Tutoring, where the AI systems I've designed and built support thousands of tutoring sessions every week. Stanford Product Design. I take products from idea to production.

email linkedin github

Where I've worked2020 — now

01 · 2020—now · Co-founder, Head of Product & Technology

Step Up Tutoring

A tutoring non-profit that runs on the systems and AI products I built.

300,000+ tutoring hours delivered, 200,000+ automations every month, 6,000+ active tutors and families

a 5-year partnership with LA Unified, the nation's second-largest school district

Core project 01 · ops & automation

The efficiency engine

Six years of automating a 20-person org, from Zapier to AI agents.

An automated tutor application flow, a Work Tracker panel, and the weekly AI team summary
  • 100+ automated sequences run onboarding, matching, comms, and data for 6,000+ users.
  • A workflow auditor flags what to automate next; its successor turns those workflows into Claude agent skills.
  • A work tracker assembles everyone's workstreams from PRs, tickets, docs, and meetings, then posts a weekly AI summary to keep the org aligned.

Zapier → Claude agents · Airtable · Bubble.io · Gemini · Cloud Run

Full case study

Core project 02 · ai product

Sidekick

A master teacher, in every tutoring session. Funded by the Gates Foundation and CZI.

Sidekick during a live tutoring session: scaffolded practice problems beside a shared whiteboard
  • Analyzes every session recording into a one-minute briefing before the tutor's next one.
  • Coaches the tutor on research-backed teaching moves, with phrasing to try next time.
  • A knowledge graph of skills finds prerequisite gaps and generates the right next lesson.

LLM pipelines · knowledge graph · React · Node · Firebase · Claude agents

Sidekick homepage
Kyron Learning interface

kyron: ai-driven interactive video

02 · 2022—2024 · Founding UX Engineer

Kyron Learning

Early designs for an AI-powered education platform.

Founded by Google Cloud's former VP of AI to make great teaching interactive at scale, backed by a $14.6M Series A and a Gates Foundation grant. Its platform lets students talk back to video lessons. The CEO recruited me off the back of my Step Up work to build experimental designs and prototypes beyond the existing product scope.

  • Designed interfaces for students, teachers, and creators across the AI learning experience.
  • Shipped front-end improvements in the codebase and high-fidelity prototypes to the team.
  • Planned and ran user testing with students.

UX engineering · prototyping · user testing · EdTech

app.kyronlearning.com

Projectsthings I've built

Quick Response Plumbing, a website generated by Jimmy AI

live · 250+ sites generated · 2 deployed for businesses

Jimmy AI

An AI pipeline that finds local businesses with bad websites, rebuilds each site, and sends it to the owner to claim.

2026 · typescript · gemini · claude code

 Neat Freak Chrome extension

live on the chrome web store

Neat Freak

Tidies your tabs into workstream folders, nudges you when they pile up, and finds anything again in plain English.

2026 · chrome mv3 · llm search · local-first

 Step Up onboarding portal

live · ~600 applicants/week

Onboarding Portal

Step Up's guided tutor onboarding, from application through background check to first match.

step up · 2021—now

 Step Up tutor portal dashboard

live · 1,000s of tutors

Tutor Portal

The tutors' home base: scheduling, resources, and auto-translated parent messaging.

step up · 2021—now

 MatchMate

live · 1,000s of matches automated

MatchMate

Intelligent matching that pairs students with the right tutors at scale.

step up · 2025

 Hero Chat

shipped to app store · 500+ reviews

Hero Chat

AI chatbots that answer your questions and let you explore others' anonymous conversations.

2023 · full stack · ux/ui

 Swayzee

in development

Swayzee

A social game with daily challenges where players persuade AI personas by pitching and negotiating.

2025 · product · ux/ui

 Troops

shipped · 100s of deliveries · yc interview

Troops

A campus delivery service app for college students, by college students.

2017 · case study

 That Feeling When

shipped

That Feeling When

A party card game about relatable moments, plus its online multiplayer version.

2020 · case study

 Quikstik

concept · presented to ikea

Quikstik

Compact, social home-workout equipment with sensor-tracked handles and a companion app.

2019 · case study

 Essential Bills

client design

Essential Bills

An app where donors pay strangers' overdue essential bills; designed for a venture studio.

2019 · case study

deeper case studies → step up tutoring · troops · quikstik · essential bills · more

About

The through-line: I see what's needed, design the answer, and build it myself. I studied Product Design at Stanford, then added full-stack engineering at Hack Reactor, finishing top of my cohort.

At Step Up I've spent six years turning a scrappy, manual operation into AI-powered systems for matching, support, feedback, and data, while keeping the humans (tutors, students, families) at the center. That pattern is what I love most: take something people do by hand, understand it deeply, and productize it with AI.

Off hours: tutoring my own students, songwriting and guitar, chess, pickleball, and an unreasonable love of escape rooms.

  • currentlyCo-founder, Head of Product & Tech — Step Up Tutoring
  • educationStanford, BS Product Design · Hack Reactor
  • ai/automationAgents, prompt engineering, LLM pipelines, Zapier, ETL
  • designFigma, Sketch, Photoshop, Illustrator, Bubble.io
  • front-endJavaScript, React, HTML5, CSS3
  • back-endNode, Express, MongoDB, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Python
  • based inLos Angeles, CA

Get in touch.

Happy to talk product, AI systems, or anything on this page. Email is fastest.

danihalp@me.com linkedin/daniel-halper github/danielhalper