00. Studio bulletin / brand statement Vol. 1, No. 1 / 2026

We build measured systems for teams that care about the outcome.

LaFayette Labs is a one-principal engineering studio, AI-leveraged and selectively booked. Architecture, hardware, firmware, cloud. Ten years of practice running through one engineer, alongside a fleet of frontier models.

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01. Capabilities / what we do

Three practices, one principal.

A1 / engineering

AI-leveraged engineering

Production code from a senior engineer running a fleet of frontier models in concert. We design the workflow; you get the artifact, with the reasoning trail intact.

B1 / hardware

Hardware and firmware

Embedded systems, hands-on. PCB design, sensor selection, low-power firmware, and AI looping around the bench when the problem warrants it.

C1 / advisory

Fractional diligence

Technical due diligence for investors and operators. Fractional CTO for founders who need a senior voice in the room without making the full hire.

02. Featured / in production

PANAKOES

An AI pendant that hears like a studio.

A wearable AI pendant built around a four-microphone studio-grade capture array. The open-source cloud backend handles audio capture, transcription on Whisper-large-v3, and Claude-powered summarization. Custom firmware on the device. Hardware and software developed together under LaFayette Labs.

Read the full case study →

array4-mic studio-grade

cloudAWS / Whisper / Claude

backendMIT, open source

roleprincipal engineer

statusactive

github.com/Aztec03hub/panakoes →

Studio-grade audio in a pendant. Open-source cloud underneath. From the Panakoes brief

03. Contact / open the conversation

Write us.

phil@lafayettelabs.com

Or, with context

For scoped engagements, the inquiry form lets us read the brief before the first reply. First reply within one business day.

Open inquiry form

Recruiters: email phil@lafayettelabs.com with the role brief.