Art
Founder & Principal Engineer
Art's first paid development contracts date to 1996, while he was still in high school. He has worked full-time in software development since 2003.
Art assembled Cognitive Horizon from former teammates: senior developers he has worked with, stayed in touch with, and would choose to work with again.
Art leads each engagement and brings in teammates to match the technical challenge and the client's budget.
A background in competitive programming, mathematics, and physics shaped an approach that starts with first principles and rigorous analysis. Before the implementation comes an understanding of what the system actually needs to do.
His current focus is AI connected to real businesses: agentic workflows, orchestration, retrieval, and integration with existing applications. Curiosity and continued learning are a central part of how he approaches the work.
We work as a technical partner, taking an active interest in your business succeeding as well as the software working.
Foundations
- 2nd / Fermat
1996 - 12th / Euclid
Competing in grade 11 - 7th / AHSME
Competing in grade 12 - 15th / Descartes
Mathematics competition - 17th / Physics
Competing in grade 11
- Mathematics: Fermat, Euclid, Descartes, CMO, AHSME, AIME, and Putnam.
- Computing: ACM competitions at university. A 22nd-place finish in Canada in a high-school programming competition.
- Physics: 17th in a high-school physics competition while in grade 11, with later participation in Canadian university physics competitions.
Member of Simon Fraser University's 1999 Putnam team, which received an honourable mention. The team comprised Arthur Kowalczyk, Tomasz Kowalczyk, and Colin A. Percival. 1999 results
Technical range
Applications built across functional, object-oriented, and systems languages. The choice follows the problem, with experience across web, desktop, mobile, and low-level programming.
Full language and framework inventory
Languages & environments
C/C++, Rust, C#, F#, Swift, Java, Haskell, Go, Clojure/Lisp, JavaScript, TypeScript, Pascal, OCaml, PHP, Ruby, Python, Elixir, Maple, Kotlin (brief use), Scala, Perl, Groovy, Crystal, Elm, BASIC.
Web frameworks & runtimes
Rails, Sinatra, Actix, ASP.NET Core, Giraffe, Oxpecker, Suave, Saturn, Kemal, Node.js, Express, Angular, React, Next.js, Vue.js, Astro, jQuery, Play, Lift, Bootstrap, Django, Flask, FastAPI, Yii, Symfony, Laravel, CodeIgniter, CakePHP, Akka, Vapor, Spring Boot, Gin, WordPress.
Desktop & mobile
.NET Framework, Avalonia, Electron, Tauri, JavaFX, GTK, Qt, React Native, Ionic.
Hardware & low-level programming
VHDL, Assembly, Machine code in hexadecimal.
Includes university work programming a Motorola microcontroller directly in hexadecimal.
Areas of focus
Our preferred model is ongoing hourly work with a consistent team. Focused consulting and part-time fractional CTO engagements are also available.
Client correspondence
In the client's
own words.
Feedback from Art's individual
engagements on Upwork.
“Artur is far more than a freelancer; he can lead a complex, enterprise-level build from the front.”
Read full review
Working with Artur was one of the best decisions I made building this company. He architected the core of our platform — an MCP server and Stripe Connect payment rail for AI content licensing — and delivered enterprise-grade, production-ready work. He gave freely of his hours, brought expertise that more than matched his rate, and even helped me find additional help to finish the build more affordably. He actively saved me money. His AI-assisted coding stack is genuinely impressive, and beyond the code, he taught me a great deal as a founder about how to work effectively and efficiently. Artur is far more than a freelancer; he can lead a complex, enterprise-level build from the front. I'd hire him again in a heartbeat and recommend him without reservation.
“Every finding included the problem, the business consequence, the exact fix with code, and the acceptance criteria to verify it.”
Read full review
Arthur came in as a fractional CTO advisor at a critical moment in our application's development. His architecture review findings were detailed, prioritised, and immediately actionable.
What stood out was the quality of the written output. Every finding included the problem, the business consequence, the exact fix with code, and the acceptance criteria to verify it. Our developer could work from Arthur's notes directly without needing a call to clarify anything.
Beyond the review, Arthur also prepared guidance on Rails 8 best practices and agentic AI development workflow; practical notes that have already changed how our developer approaches the codebase day to day.
Arthur thinks like a CTO, not just a senior developer. He flagged risks we hadn't considered, explained tradeoffs in plain language for a non-technical founder, and was responsive and clear throughout. We're bringing him back for other fractional CTO work.
“Our bugs, which we expected to take one to two weeks to analyze and repair were fixed in one and a half days, including time to study our codebase and on-boarding.”
Read full review
Arthur is an exceptionally skilled developer!
Our bugs, which we expected to take one to two weeks to analyze and repair were fixed in one and a half days, including time to study our codebase and on-boarding. We will hire Arthur again when the project's next phase is ready.