Stephen Hutchens

Commander
DISC Type : D

Co-founder & CTO at Payflow

Atlanta Metropolitan Area, United States

Overview

Stephen is an applied AI engineering leader and former CTO of the YC-backed fintech, Payflow. He has hands-on experience architecting and building agentic AI systems from the ground up, with expertise in LangGraph and RAG. Colleagues describe him as brilliant, dedicated, and having razor-sharp focus.

Outside of his formal roles, Stephen pursues complex personal projects that leverage his professional skills. He has been building an AI-powered swing trading agent, which he has back-tested over five years to refine its performance, demonstrating a deep personal interest in algorithmic financial strategies.

Unique fact: The AI swing trading agent he built has a Sharpe ratio of 1. 36 and a profit factor of 1. 72 over 5 years of backtesting.

Personality Overview

Decisive

Strong-Willed

Candid & Clear

They like to act fast and expect others to do the same.  They like to be in a position where they can control the conversation and terms. They respond better to strong and respectful interactions.

Topics They Care About

Agentic AI Systems
His core expertise is building production agentic systems from scratch, personally developing core functionality using LangGraph, RAG systems, and deep agents for SQL and OpenPyXL.
AI for FP&A
As CTO of Payflow, he pivoted the company to focus on AI-powered Financial Planning & Analysis, aiming to make finance teams strategic partners rather than bottlenecks.
Engineering Velocity
He repeatedly highlights his ability to drive triple-digit increases in engineering velocity while maintaining high product quality at multiple companies, including Payflow and HatchWorks AI.

Media Appearances

Stephen has no verified media appearances

Work History

1-2025 - 1-2026
Co-founder & CTO at Payflow
12-2023 - 12-2024
Chief Technology Officer at Payflow
1-2023 - 12-2023
Head of Engineering at Payflow
5-2022 - 1-2023
Founding Principal Software Engineer at Payflow
11-2019 - 2-2022
Senior Software Architect at HatchWorks AI

Education

Master of Engineering - MS from University of Colorado Boulder
2020 - 2020
Nanodegree from Udacity

More Information

Social Presence :

Prographics :

Exp : 9 Location : Atlanta Metropolitan Area, United States Job Level : N/A Designation : Co-founder & CTO at Payflow
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Insights For Selling To Stephen

During A Call Or A Meeting

DO's

  • Get to the point quickly instead of spending time doing small talk
  • Objectively showcase the impact that your product creates
  • Use phrases like ‘it’s your decision’, ‘strategic impact’ etc.

DONT's

  • Do not spend too much time focusing on product tech or features
  • Don’t focus on process and rules, give the impression of being a ‘gets it done’ person
  • Avoid being a storyteller and don’t try to oversell

When Cold Calling

When Writing An Email

While Negotiating & Closing

    The secret to closing fast with Stephen is

  • Conviction around the impact matters the most to them, followed by a sense of achievement and ROI.
  • Will you ever get a clear answer from Stephen

  • If they decide not to use your product, they will say no clearly.

Insights For Deal Planning

    How fast (or slow) will Stephen move?

  • They can take decisions very fast if you manage to convince them.
  • Can Stephen take some risk or not?

  • The risks don’t matter much to them.

You And Stephen

Personality Compatibility


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