Meet the Developer
I'm Ethan Stephens, the engineer behind Undr Development. I've spent my career solving problems in places I had no business being—helicopter training facilities, industrial control rooms, aircraft interior shops, transportation logistics, mobile platforms—and somehow making myself useful in each one.
The pattern has always been the same: show up, shut up, and watch. I sit with the people doing the work. I see where they struggle, where the bottlenecks form, where time disappears into inefficiency. Then I build something that helps.
At a helicopter training facility, I taught myself Ruby on Rails and wrote a document management system that reduced FAA audit timelines from three weeks to three days. In industrial environments, I designed networks, wrote control system logic, and pioneered digital transformation of reporting processes—cutting response times by an order of magnitude. As the sole engineer at an aircraft completions company, I built everything from data synchronization systems to a financial projections tool that freed the assistant controller to actually do her job. In transportation, I architected solutions in Go and .NET, deploying containerized APIs to AWS while retrofitting legacy systems that couldn't be thrown away. Most recently, I led native Android development efforts in Kotlin, establishing the design patterns and best practices for an entire mobile development vertical.
If there's a thread through all of it, it's this: I'd rather improve what exists than add something new. More systems mean more overhead, more management, more entropy. I tend to isolate problems, decompose them, and restructure—not rebuild from scratch unless there's no other way.
On Leading Teams
I've had the privilege of leading engineers, and my philosophy is simple: get out of their way. Let them work. When they stray too far, guide them back gently. Provide encouragement and honest feedback. Protect them from the business nastiness that can poison good work. And ultimately, work yourself out of a job by elevating everyone around you.
If something goes wrong, I take the heat. That's the deal.
On AI and Staying Grounded
I've been using AI for development since the Copilot beta. I've tested most of the tools out there, and I currently run an AI dev tooling focus group for my employer—building training materials and best practices for teams adopting these technologies.
But I'm careful. AI poses two risks I take seriously. The first is "vibe coding"—letting AI produce production code unchecked. These tools are powerful, but they make mistakes. Human oversight isn't optional; it's the job.
The second risk is more personal. I've written about this elsewhere, but relying heavily on AI made me question my own abilities. Was I still a good engineer, or was I just good at prompting? I had to step away from the tools periodically to reground myself, to prove I could still think through problems without assistance. That tension—between advocacy and caution—is something I carry intentionally. It makes me better at helping others navigate the same waters.
On Building for Myself
The applications under Undr Development started as personal projects—exercises in self-indulgence, really.
RPG Tavern
exists because I wanted to run better D&D combat. I was tired of fumbling through encounter balancing and combat tracking, so I built a tool that handled the math and let me focus on the story. It started as an Angular proof-of-concept before evolving into the mobile app it is today.
Better Retirement
was two things: a test of how far agentic AI had come (built with Claude and GPT assistance), and a solution to my own frustration. I couldn't find a retirement calculator flexible enough to handle my actual investment patterns, so I made one.
RapidForm
came from a conversation with my brother. He needed simple, offline-capable forms for field work. That's it. Sometimes the best software comes from the simplest ask.
On the Name
"Undr Development" is a pun. It started with a World of Warcraft troll character named Undrbridge—because trolls live under bridges. But the name stuck because it captures something I believe deeply: if we're not actively working to improve, we're degrading. Nothing is static. Everything has velocity.
I must always consider myself under development—never arrived, never finished—or I'll never become who I might be.
On Life Outside the Code
I've been married to my wife Jaclyn for fourteen years. She's my rock, my constant, the person who keeps everything grounded when I'm deep in some problem I can't let go of.
My daughter Cheyenne is thirteen and makes me proud every single day. Watching her grow into who she's becoming is one of the great privileges of my life.
My son Dawson is nine, a carbon copy of me, and I am deeply thankful my parents had grace—because I now understand what they dealt with. He's a ball of fire who lives life at full intensity, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
When I'm not building software or wrangling kids, you'll find me fishing. If you ever want to take this Cajun boy out on the water, just holler. I'll come running.
Let's Connect
I'm not the smartest engineer in the room. But I'm genuine, I solve problems, and I've built a toolbox across enough industries to handle whatever lands in front of me. If you want to talk shop, collaborate on something interesting, or just swap fishing stories—reach out.