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Full Service Web Development - New York Full Service Web Development - New York
Services

"Steve is an exceptionally talented developer/engineer/technical magician. Not only did the final product exceed expectations — it truly made an impression and set new standards. I highly recommend him."

Liz Oh, Head of Brand Design, Grammarly

I'm a full-stack developer with over twenty-five years of experience, working extensively with AI as part of my day-to-day practice. My work spans everything from what your users see on their screens all the way back to the database, plus third-party integrations, payment systems, hosting, and dev-ops. Recent work has focused increasingly on production AI: integrating LLMs like Claude and OpenAI into web applications, designing the prompt and context strategies that make them useful, and building MCP servers that let AI assistants interact with other systems gracefully. My work is responsive, search-engine- and LLM-friendly, AI-enabled when that makes sense, accessible, secure, scalable, reliable, and maintainable.

About

"A rockstar... passionate and completely dedicated."

Apar Kothari Gupta, Director, Business Development, Samsung Electronics

Steve Schneider I have over twenty-five years experience creating websites for clients such as BMW Motorcycles, Carnegie Hall, NBC, Warner Music Group, Guardian Life Insurance, Richemont SA, Novartis International, Starwood Hotels, the Museum of Natural History, Elektra Records, Johnson & Johnson, TIAA, and Charles Schwab, as well as for many start-ups. I've also worked for digital agencies such as Razorfish, Organic, and Merkley + Partners Interactive, as well as at AOL, Tablet Hotels, Major League Baseball, AdSonar, and Collide.com.

Additionally, I spent six years as a serial start-up CTO at three VC-funded ventures (MyNines.com, Squarekey, and Tunnel X Inc.). In all three cases I was completely hands-on, writing the bulk of the code comprising each company's codebase. Details of my work are here.

I graduated from NYU with a B.A. in political science. My personal website is The Avocado Papers.

Work
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I've built web applications for many dozens of clients. Here are a few highlights.

A matter of trust

TruthOrLie.ai is a SaaS-based, AI-driven application which analyzes uploaded or streamed video (Zoom, Teams, etc.) and determines whether each statement made by participants is true or false, surfacing those assessments to users as streaming, annotated transcripts with no more than 5-10 seconds of latency. I designed and built the application's entire frontend (React, Next.js), the Node/Express API layer behind it, the architecture connecting those pieces to the Python machine-learning services, and the production infrastructure and deployment pipeline on AWS.

Going public in the time of COVID

When Compass Inc. prepared to go public on the New York Stock Exchange during the height of the COVID pandemic, they faced a unique challenge: how to bring thousands of employees and agents together for a once-in-a-lifetime milestone—while everyone was stuck at home. The solution was a custom-built internal site that transformed IPO day into a shared digital experience. From the ringing of the NYSE bell to interviews with company leaders and longtime team members, the platform gave everyone a front-row seat to the moment, wherever they were.

It was a true sprint—designed, built, and launched under pressure to be ready for IPO day. The result was a seamless, media-rich experience that captured the energy of a live event and helped a distributed workforce feel like one team at the center of it all.

A crowdfunding site that teaches you its secrets

Support Our Story, a fully custom-built crowdfunding platform launched in 2022, isn't just a Kickstarter or IndieGoGo clone tailored for today's creatives. It also coaches users every step of the way along the rewarding but treacherous road to a successful fundraising campaign. As the only "crowdfunding platform that coaches you," Support Our Story offers what other sites can't.

It is more than a place to raise money—it is a guided experience, designed by and for storytellers, dreamers, and doers. Creators receive personalized support, expert insights, and built-in accountability that turns ideas into action—and action into results. Because at the heart of every successful campaign isn't just funding—it's a story, well told and well supported.

A super-private place for super-secret chats

Tunnel X, the first-of-its-kind platform, enabled ultra-private, ultra-secure communication between two people through a single-page web app or mobile apps (iOS and Android). Long before mainstream platforms like WhatsApp emphasized privacy and security, Tunnel X provided full 256-bit end-to-end encryption of all communications.

Hired as CTO, I oversaw all technical architecture, web development, and mobile-app development. I implemented a state-of-the-art at-rest encryption scheme for all messages and attachments, with my implementation vetted by Dr. Yevgeniy Dodis, cryptography professor at NYU's Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences.

Tunnel X assembled an impressive advisory board, including legal scholar Laurence Tribe of Harvard Law School and media theorist Steven Johnson. The company secured funding from Milestone Venture Partners and others.

The Kayak for sample sales

I built MyNines.com, the first online aggregator of sample-sale sites like Gilt, RueLaLa, and Hautelook, as the company's hands-on CTO. The role covered technical architecture, product development, and full-stack implementation.

MyNines needed to ingest product data from third-party retailers in real time, across a variety of formats. I built systems to normalize and store this data, which was then presented on the site in a searchable, sortable, filterable format. Users could also sign up for brand- or category-specific alerts, and product data could be exported for third-party publishers in multiple formats.

Two days after launch, the company secured VC funding led by Tribeca Venture Partners.

A leading-edge app for trainers and clients

I built Kqool.com in close collaboration with NYC fitness expert Andrew McCreary. The platform allowed McCreary and his fellow trainers to assign fitness routines to clients online and monitor their progress—years before this functionality became common. Clients can log workouts, track food intake (including via a comprehensive calorie-counter integration), record weight, and manage other fitness data—all in one place.

The ultimate home for The Ultimate Driving Machine

I built BMWMotorcycles.com freelance for Merkley + Partners Interactive, including both a complete redesign of the consumer-facing website and development of a custom content management system. The CMS allowed BMW to manage editorial content, model data, associated images and videos, special promotions, events, homepage features, and more—all without developer intervention. The result: a flexible, self-managed platform that eliminated ongoing maintenance needs.

Tech

"Steve helped me realize my vision as an online experience. I was so lucky to have met such a qualified programmer and designer."

Andrew McCreary, Kqool.com

I generally do modern JavaScript development on a stack like this...

  • Next.js/React
  • Node.js/Express, Fastify, Strapi
  • SCSS
  • PostgreSQL, MySQL, or MongoDB/Mongoose
  • Stripe
  • Firebase, Auth0 (authentication, etc.)
  • Claude/Anthropic and OpenAI APIs (LLM integration, prompt engineering)
  • MCP server development
  • AWS (EC2, S3, ALBs, Autoscaling, CodeDeploy, CloudFront, SES, SNS, Route 53, Lambda, MediaConvert, etc.)
  • CCPA/GDPR and general privacy-law compliance
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