Joseph Demarest

I’m the founding (and sole) engineer at Vyir Inc, an optical R&D company — which in practice means I own an entire instrumentation stack end-to-end. Python services, REST APIs, and PyQt/PyQtGraph desktop applications on top; embedded firmware, motion control, and custom KiCad PCBs underneath. A research requirement goes in one side; a validated, shipping instrument comes out the other.

Most of my work is optical metrology: laser beam profiling, spectroscopy, infrared camera characterization, and hardware-triggered scanning systems. Underneath the instruments sits the part I care about most — a shared instrumentation platform (one monorepo, a common application framework, hardware abstraction with mock devices, strict CI gates) that lets a one-person engineering org build, test, and ship like a full team.

A few things I hold onto stubbornly: units are explicit, hardware writes are range-checked and fail safe, and validated “frozen” systems stay frozen. Precision is a feature.

Off the clock I build agentic AI tooling — a self-improving agent swarm with hard cost caps, local-first AI usage analytics — plus game tooling and mods (Path of Exile 2 market intelligence, a Project Zomboid electrical overhaul), all orbiting a Proxmox homelab. I hold a B.S. in Computer Science from the College of Staten Island (CUNY).

Have a look at my projects, skim the CV, or find me on GitHub.