Ian Jones

I spent 15 years building and leading engineering teams in regulated, high-stakes environments — IoT monitoring platforms, telehealth systems, pharma-adjacent infrastructure — before starting Third Order Labs.

I led small, senior engineering teams at Onset Computer Corporation, Chewy, and LI-COR, building cloud infrastructure, backend platforms, and device-connected systems used in regulated environments worldwide. I hold an MEng in Computer Science from Cornell University.

I'm a practitioner-first leader: close enough to the code to debug production issues, experienced enough to set technical direction and mentor engineers through complex decisions. That same duality drives Third Order Labs — I bring both strategic clarity and hands-on engineering to every engagement.

My recent work includes building AI-powered production systems: a human-in-the-loop QA copilot for pharma, an AI-to-physical-mail platform, and an agentic activity discovery engine. These projects reflect my core belief that applied AI in serious domains requires guardrails, auditability, and intentional design — not just model calls.

I write and speak about third-order AI thinking: the idea that real AI adoption isn't a feature or a product decision, but an organizational transformation that touches engineering, product, culture, and risk.