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Shelbe Yousey

About

ShelbeYousey.

Portrait of Shelbe Yousey

Tuscaloosa, Alabama

I’ve been writing code for more than five years, and I study Artificial Intelligence at The University of Alabama in the Honors College, with minors in Mathematics and Entrepreneurship.

Most of what I know I learned by shipping. I co-founded Thrise and built it end to end: a native SwiftUI app with Watch and widget targets, sitting on an Express and PostgreSQL API I wrote myself. I was CTO at Click and Close, where I built an AI receptionist that has handled 300+ calls and the dashboard clients run it from, and I co-developed an iOS marketplace that went on to win $20K at Innovate Alabama. I’m also lead author of a peer-reviewed IEEE Security & Privacy paper on the security of agentic AI.

What I want is a hard technical problem whose solution actually matters once it ships: something people use every day, not a demo that stops at the pitch.

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01Experience

What I’ve been doing.

May 2026 – Present

Tuscaloosa, AL

Co-Founder & Chief Technology Officer

Thrise (formerly GymDoe)

  • Architected, built and launched a full-stack social fitness platform to the App Store in June 2026, now serving 200+ users with workout planning, set-by-set tracking, personal records, a social feed and coach tooling.
  • Own the entire stack: a native SwiftUI client with Apple Watch and widget targets, and a TypeScript/Express API with Prisma over PostgreSQL, Clerk auth, S3 media and Stripe Connect payouts for coaches.
  • Shipped AI-generated training plans conditioned on a user's goals, equipment and schedule through the OpenAI API.
  • Lead the full development lifecycle, translating feedback from 1,000+ prospective users and pilot customers into requirements, features, testing and releases.

Mar 2026 – May 2026

Tuscaloosa, AL

Undergraduate Researcher

Department of Computer Science, The University of Alabama

  • Lead author of a peer-reviewed IEEE Security & Privacy publication on agentic AI, analyzing autonomous-system capabilities, attack surfaces, security risks and defensive considerations across transportation systems.

Feb 2026 – Present

Tuscaloosa, AL

Software Engineer (Contract)

Unleased · HelpHand · Soar · Cruise Funding · Boost

  • Co-developing Unleased, a lease-takeover marketplace with Zillow-style discovery and eBay-style bidding, on a two-person team: Next.js, TypeScript and Supabase, with Postgres row-level security, atomic bidding through SQL RPCs, Stripe payments and Claude-powered listing import.
  • Developed Sela, an iOS odd-jobs marketplace for HelpHand, a Samford University startup. It shipped to the App Store in March 2026 and went on to win $20,000 through Innovate Alabama.
  • Trained custom computer vision models and integrated them into an iOS app for Soar that automatically edits film of basketball dunk sessions.
  • Built an AI-driven outbound email system on top of a lead research and scoring pipeline for Cruise Funding, and fixed a Shopify/Meta Ads integration that was double-counting purchases for Boost ahead of a paid campaign.

Oct 2025 – May 2026

Tuscaloosa, AL

Chief Technology Officer

Click and Close

  • Built the company's two products end to end: an AI receptionist assembled from n8n, Retell AI and the Google Calendar API, and Lighthouse, the dashboard clients run it from.
  • Designed self-configuring onboarding, so a new client goes live from basic business details with no per-account engineering.
  • Handled 300+ calls across the pilot, calling leads back the moment they submit a form and booking appointments during the call.
  • Won $2,500 for best new business idea at the ALDAG pitch competition.
  • Engineered a personalized outbound marketing system generating dynamic emails and custom video content at scale.
  • Developed an LLM-powered prospecting pipeline using Perplexity and external APIs to identify high-intent leads and generate tailored business value reports.
  • Still maintain both products, shipping fixes and features against client needs.
02Education

Where I studied.

Expected May 2029

The University of Alabama

B.S. Artificial Intelligence, minors in Mathematics and Entrepreneurship · Tuscaloosa, AL

GPA 4.00 / 4.00

  • Honors College
  • President's Cabinet Scholar (1 of 15)
  • President's List
  • Phi Eta Sigma National Honor Society
  • Artificial Intelligence Club

June 2025

The American School in London

High School Diploma · London, England

GPA 4.00 / 4.00

  • Valedictorian
  • National Merit Scholar
  • 1560 SAT
  • National Honor Society
  • 13 AP courses
03Toolkit

What I build with.

Languages

  • TypeScript
  • Python
  • C++
  • JavaScript
  • Java
  • Swift

Frontend & Mobile

  • React
  • React Native
  • SwiftUI
  • Next.js
  • Tailwind CSS

Backend & APIs

  • Node.js
  • Express
  • tRPC
  • REST
  • Webhooks

Data

  • PostgreSQL
  • Supabase
  • Prisma
  • SQL

Auth & Payments

  • Clerk
  • Google OAuth
  • Stripe

Cloud

  • AWS S3
  • CloudFront
  • Vercel
  • Railway

AI & ML

  • OpenAI
  • Anthropic
  • Perplexity
  • Retell AI
  • YOLO
  • TensorFlow
  • Neural networks

Platforms & Automation

  • n8n
  • Puppeteer
  • GoHighLevel
  • Shopify
  • Meta Ads Manager

Let’s build something.

Get in touchSee the work