Ship Like a Startup Team in Austin

Simulate a Startup Team with Luciano and Maya

Join this Build & Brew group building in Austin!

Build & Brew (B&B) is NextWork's community program where you build alongside a tight-knit group of 4-8 people that commit to meeting up every week.

This is your inside look at Luciano and Maya’s B&B group, based right in the heart of Austin, Texas 🤠 Here’s what we’re building, who’s leading the charge, and how you can join…

Quick Facts:

• ⏰ When: every Wednesday, 5:30pm CT
• 📍 Where: in person at downtown Austin, W 6th Street (close to Nightcap)
• 🧠 What: teamwork/collaboration-based projects that simulate a real world startup environment.
• ⭐️ Open for new members - complete this project to apply! (takes 1 minute)

Explore the Startup Sim Format

What is this group learning about?

This group is not one where everyone follows the same tutorial side by side. They're building together in a special format where each person in the group owns a different piece of shipping a real product.

Expect multiplayer projects where you take on a defined role. The goal is to mirror how real startup teams build products, and the team only succeeds when every piece comes together.

What are the roles?

• Designer owns how the product looks and feels. This is the person shaping the user experience, the layout, and the visual direction.
• Developer owns how the product works under the hood. This is the person writing the code, wiring up the logic, and making things run.
• PM (Product Manager) owns what gets built and why. This is the person defining the scope, prioritizing features, and keeping the team focused on shipping.
• Wildcard could be QA, DevOps, or anything else the team needs for that project!

Meet Your Build and Brew Masters

Now that you know about the group, it's time to meet the fantastic Build & Brew Masters running it!

Meet Luciano Aldana, your Build Master

Luciano is a senior software engineer with over 15 years of experience, and is currently the Vice President Sr Lead Software Engineer at J.P. Morgan.

Outside of that, he's building Octonions, his own multi-agent AI system!

Luciano's focus topics include harness engineering and using AI in unorthodox ways. You bet that he loves bringing these ideas, alongside his engineering experience, into the projects he'll take you through.

What does Luciano love to learn about?

Luciano is obsessed with ways humans and AI agents can collaborate. That obsession is actually where his Build & Brew group format comes from: a multiplayer, collaborative series of projects, where each member plays a role and uses AI as agents to help them ship something at a startup!

Meet Don Stolz, your Build Master

Don is based in Austin and brings a strong technical and academic background to his Build & Brew group, focused on harness engineering and fine-tuning LLMs for specific use cases.

Outside of that, he's building an agent harness from scratch, inspired by Pi, with plans to keep extending it project by project with his group.

Don describes himself as a generalist who's endlessly adaptable, and it shows: he's just as comfortable diving into RAG and open-source tooling as he is guiding a group through a complex build.

What does Don love to learn about?

Don is drawn to the deep-end of AI: harnesses, fine-tuning, the stuff that takes real academic grounding to get right. When he's not in front of a screen, you'll find him playing pickup lacrosse or soccer, doing yoga, or hanging out with his dog, Klaus.

Meet Maya Menon, your Brew Master

Maya is a founding member of the NextWork team and runs the community. There is truly no one better than her to talk about NextWork, the people in it, and how you can get started.

Maya also holds a Ph.D. and a postdoc in engineering education, where she's published years of research on how people learn. She joined NextWork to build what the research had been pointing to for decades: learning that is hands-on, project-based, and done alongside other people.

Outside of building AI projects and running the NextWork community, you will catch her enjoying Bollywood music, yoga or dancing!

What does Maya love about being a Brew Master?

Maya loves crafting great learning experiences where everyone feels included, supported, and welcome. We could not be luckier to have Maya build NextWork's community pillar that is solving the problem of learning alone.

Nice Work!

Want to Join This Group?

Here's your checklist:

• Are you based in Austin, Texas?
• Are you ready to commit to Wednesdays 5:30-6:30pm CT, every week?
• Are you excited about learning in a small, tight-knit group of just 4-8 people?

If you answered yes to all three, fill out the application form below. We’ll be in touch within a day 👊