Doctoral research in condensed matter physics. A decade building at Uber and HERE Technologies. Now shipping AI infrastructure and iOS apps from Berlin. This is the person behind the work — the résumé line is only part of it.
Looking to work together professionally? westover.expert has the engagement details.
Three facets, one person. Each shaped the other two more than any of them show on their own.
Doctoral research in condensed matter physics and quantum chemistry at the University of Central Florida (ABD), two peer-reviewed papers, and a few years teaching physics before I was ever in front of a server rack.
A decade of engineering at Uber and HERE Technologies — where I built the craft: navigation infrastructure, autonomous-driving capture systems, and the platform-team habits that came home with me.
Founder of Westover Labs, building an autonomous AI agent team and two live iOS apps from Berlin. My family's history in this city runs back to before the Wall came down.
Doctoral research in physics, an MBA, ten years of engineering at Uber and HERE Technologies. But what actually matters is what got built. From an early solo contract to navigation infrastructure serving all of Uber, the through-line is the caliber of the work — not the size of the logo. First-person, no sales copy.
Before the servers, there was surface physics. Two peer-reviewed papers from my doctoral research, plus a nod from a planetary-science paper I helped think through.
James Westover, Hamid Oughaddou, Hanna Enriquez, Abdelkader Kara — Surface Science, 2012. DOI: 10.1016/j.susc.2012.05.027
Abdelkader Kara, Kathrin Müller, Thomas Brugger, James Westover, Thomas Greber, Thomas Jung — Journal of Physical Chemistry C, 2012. DOI: 10.1021/jp308058u
Bryce T. Bolin, Kevin J. Walsh, Alessandro Morbidelli, Marco Delbo. The authors acknowledge James Westover "for thought-provoking discussions on the implementation of large-scale computing resources and algorithms" used in the work.
The astronomy interest isn't decorative. In grad school I built a junk HPC cluster out of salvaged Pentiums while fighting for time on shared university and national-lab systems — the scrappy origin of a project I still want to build: a SETI@home-style iOS app doing background distributed computing on astronomical data.
My mother was born in Berlin. My grandmother left the GDR before the Wall came down. I grew up a dual citizen — American and German — and spent ten years building at Uber and HERE Technologies in the US. In 2023 I moved back. The systems I build now carry both halves: engineering habits formed at American technology companies, applied from the city my family is from.
Hiring is a gamble, and a fractional principal you've never worked with is an even bigger one. So rather than ask you to bet on a long engagement up front, I'd rather scope a first, focused piece of work — and let it speak for itself.
That's the point of the fractional model: right-sized, fixed-scope engagements put principal-caliber judgment — the kind that shipped at Uber and HERE — within reach of a business of any size. You don't need an Uber-sized budget to get an Uber-caliber read on your architecture.
No pitch deck, no vendor theater — you watch how I actually think through a problem, how I write, how I hand things off. Start with something concrete and contained. If it's not a fit, you walk away with real work product and an honest read on your architecture.
This isn't the pricing page. When you're ready to talk scope and terms, westover.expert is where I lay out how I work with clients.
How I engage → westover.expertI'm easiest to reach by email. For a formal engagement, start at westover.expert — for the company I run this through, westoverlabs.eu.