Will Turnage

Experience

I&CO

Director of Technology 2016 - 2024 (over 8 years)

Lead technology for I&CO, a global innovation firm and product incubation studio with offices in New York and Tokyo. Responsibilities for this role include:

• Act... more

R/GA

SVP, Technology 2006 - 2016 (about 10 years)

Lead the Technology team in R/GA's NY headquarters. Focus on building products and services for our clients, mentoring and developing talent, leading technology-centric new... more

Exit

Vital Score

Advisor

CHRGR

Advisor

Punchfork

Advisor

R/GA Ventures

Mentor

Sony Music Entertainment

Director, New Technologies 2000 - 2006 (over 5 years)

Led engineering for a small, internal team focused on New Media experiences for Sony Music’s roster of 2000+ artists

Projects included enhanced CDs, PSP titles, online... more

1848 Ventures

Venture Builder, Technical 2024 - 2026 (about 2 years)

Worked in the Innovation Engine team to develop early-stage, AI-powered products that solve business problems for small and medium-sized businesses. Shipped products include... more

Employee

Sony Music Entertainment, R/GA, I&CO, 1848 Ventures

Advisor

Vital Score, Punchfork, CHRGR

Mentor

R/GA Ventures

Education

About

Achievements

I'm a founding engineer. Over the last six years I've built six products from the ground up, most of them as the sole or first engineer. These products include a food-allergy tracker, two AI products for a venture studio, a compliance SaaS pilot, an edTech replatform, and a video subscription business.

I work across the stack (React, TypeScript, Node, Python, Postgres, AWS, GCP) and own features from first commit to production. I bring the same rigor to AI that I bring to everything else. Ship it, measure it, and be honest about what it can't do.

Right now I'm building Platebook, for people sorting out a new food allergy or intolerance. It tracks what you eat and how you feel, then finds recipes that fit. It's mostly deterministic code, with LLMs handling the 20 to 30 percent they're actually better at. I'm also consulting at Point B, leading engineering on two marketing platforms for a global streaming service.

I'm looking for the next thing to build with a team I believe in.

Describe the most impressive thing you've done.

Skills

Mobile Development User Experience Design Product Development Concept to Execution Frontend Development Leadership Google Cloud Platform (GCP) AWS Natural Language Processing Management Product Strategy Business Strategy Anthropic Claude openAI Gemini Agentic AI LLMs LLM Frameworks (Langchain, Claude, LLamaIndex) RAG Technologies Embedding Models Vect Claude Code

Locations

New York City

Q&A

What's your favorite non-business book?

Too many to mention, but current choice would be N.K. Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy.

What's your super power?

Empathy

What's the most useful business-related book you've ever read?

The Checklist Manifesto is a classic, but recently I've enjoyed Sarah Drasner's "Engineering Management for the Rest of Us"

What's the best way for people to get in touch with you?

Email is easiest. Or I have open office hours.

What words of wisdom do you live by?

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” - Maya Angelou

What was the most impactful class you took in school?

Sitcom writing

Will Turnage (He/Him)

Founding Engineer • Full-Stack + AI • I ship production software, design systems, and make the architecture decisions that turn early-stage ideas into real businesses.