AI strategy and engineering for teams that ship.
Keller Tech is the consulting practice of Ricky Keller: sixteen years of production engineering, an AI rollout led across a 40-engineer org at a Fortune 50 bank, and two AI-native apps shipped solo since. The strategy stays connected to the code.
Three ways to work together.
Engagements are hourly or project-based, sized to the problem. Every one of them is delivered by the person on this page, not handed to a bench.
AI enablement and governance
Tool rollouts that stick: Copilot, Cursor, and Claude across real engineering orgs. Acceptable-use policy, code-review integration, and the training that makes adoption hold. Comfortable in regulated environments.
AI and custom software
LLM features in production, model migrations on live systems, CI/CD, and modular architectures that survive change. Built hands-on and measured by delivery output, not slideware.
Engineering leadership
Fractional leadership for growing teams: direction, hiring, and delivery metrics from someone who stays in the code. Experience scaling a fully remote org past 120 people for Fortune 500 clients.
Who is Keller Tech?
Keller Tech is me, Ricky Keller. I've been building software professionally since 2010, and I started this practice to bring that experience to businesses here on the Gulf Coast.
Where I come from
I spent about a decade at a global consultancy in Chicago, starting as a developer and working my way up to Head of Web & Mobile Engineering for the Americas, where I led 120+ engineers building apps for Fortune 500 clients. One of those apps was ranked #1 in J.D. Power's first U.S. Credit Card App Satisfaction Study.
What I've been up to
Lately I've been putting that experience to work closer to home. I led an AI tooling rollout for a 40-engineer org at a Fortune 50 bank, getting real teams comfortable with these tools in a regulated environment. And through my studio, Banked Embers, I've got two AI apps live on the App Store and Google Play, both designed, built, and shipped by me, start to finish.
Why I'm here
I moved to Biloxi from Chicago, and I think businesses here deserve the same quality of engineering the big markets get. When you work with Keller Tech, you're working with me directly. I'm the one on the calls, and I'm the one writing the code.
We ship our own products too.
Keller Tech builds consumer apps through its studio, Banked Embers. The studio work keeps the consulting honest: every recommendation comes from patterns we run in production ourselves.
Reads a message thread and gives a private, plain-language reading of the communication patterns inside it. A reading, not a verdict.
A practice ground for understanding people you disagree with. Guess what the other side thinks, get a score, watch it improve.
Both live on iPhone and Android at bankedembers.com.
My data promise.
Your data is your business. Literally. So before any work starts, we put data handling in writing: what gets processed, where it goes, and who can see it.
No training on your data
When a project uses AI tools, I set them up on terms where your data is never used to train anyone's models. Where the job allows it, I go further and keep processing private or on-device entirely. Nothing leaves your control without your sign-off.
I build this way too
This isn't a policy I wrote for consulting. Subtext, one of my own apps, reads people's most personal messages, and I designed it so that reading stays private. Full stop. I hold client work to the same standard I hold my own products.
Tested where it counts
Before Keller Tech, I ran an AI rollout inside a Fortune 50 bank. In that world data governance isn't a promise, it's an audit. That's the bar I bring to your project, whether you're a two-person shop or a regulated business.
Work with Keller Tech.
Based on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, working with local businesses and remote teams anywhere. The fastest path is a short email about what you are trying to ship.
Tell me what you are trying to ship.
A couple of sentences is plenty. You will hear back from me, not an account manager.