Civil Engineering · Systems Design · Automation
Sanford Dinkins, PE
Engineering solutions across physical and digital systems.
Licensed Professional Engineer specializing in site civil land development, with parallel experience designing scalable digital tools, automation systems, and engineering workflows.
Engineering Experience
Site Civil Engineering
I am a licensed civil engineer with hands-on experience delivering site civil land development projects from concept through permitting and execution. My work spans grading, drainage, stormwater management, utilities coordination, and regulatory approvals, with a strong emphasis on constructability, compliance, and risk reduction.
I routinely work at the intersection of design constraints, jurisdictional requirements, and real-world execution—coordinating across disciplines, responding to review comments, and refining plans to meet both technical and regulatory standards.
Areas of Practice
- Site civil land development
- Grading and earthwork design
- Stormwater management and drainage systems
- Water and sewer utilities coordination
- Permitting, entitlements, and agency approvals
- Consultant coordination and technical QA/QC
Professional Approach
My engineering work is grounded in clarity, accountability, and systems thinking. I focus on producing plans and calculations that are not only technically sound, but also efficient to review, build, and maintain.
Licensure is not a formality—it reflects responsibility. I approach every project with that responsibility in mind.
Engineering Philosophy
Engineering is ultimately about decision-making under constraint.
Whether addressing runoff limits, utility conflicts, grading balance, or permitting requirements, I prioritize solutions that are technically correct, clearly documented, and practical to implement. The same disciplined thinking that governs my engineering work also informs the systems and tools I build beyond traditional design.
Projects & Systems
Digital Tools & Automation
In parallel with my engineering practice, I design and build digital systems that remove friction from professional workflows—particularly in engineering, accounting, billing, and technical documentation.
These are not experiments. They are working systems built to solve real problems I encountered firsthand.
Same engineering mindset. Different medium.
Professional site civil engineering work including grading design, stormwater management, utilities coordination, and agency permitting for land development projects.
- Grading and drainage design
- Stormwater management systems
- Utilities coordination (water, sewer)
- Permitting and agency coordination
- Quality assurance and professional responsibility
Licensed engineering work requiring technical precision, professional judgment, and accountability to public safety standards.
I designed and built a civil billing platform that integrates QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Time, automating workflows that are traditionally manual, error-prone, and spreadsheet-heavy.
- Automated retrieval of time entries by project and sub-project
- Engineering-specific billing summaries aligned with contract scopes
- Progress billing logic for projects without native QBO progress fields
- Clean, engineer-readable billing reports for internal review
- Optional invoice creation directly from validated summaries
This system replaces hours of manual reconciliation with a repeatable, auditable process.
I have built automation tools tailored to land surveying workflows, focusing on:
- Job and project data organization
- Time and effort tracking by survey order
- Report extraction and summarization
- Structured data access for engineering and billing use cases
These tools reduce administrative overhead and allow technical staff to focus on production work rather than data wrangling.
StudyGuidesAI is an educational platform designed to convert complex material into structured, digestible study guides. The system emphasizes clarity, hierarchy, and retention—principles directly informed by engineering documentation practices.
The platform integrates AI-assisted summarization with curated structure, avoiding the noise and inconsistency typical of generic content tools.
I have designed MCP (Model Context Protocol) servers that expose QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Time data in a controlled, queryable format. These systems enable:
- Natural-language access to accounting and time data
- Secure token handling without fragile state
- Reusable tooling for desktop and web applications
This work bridges accounting systems with modern AI tooling while maintaining auditability and security.
In addition to production platforms, I regularly build internal tools to:
- Automate repetitive engineering tasks
- Generate structured reports and summaries
- Reduce coordination overhead
- Improve data visibility across teams
Some tools remain internal by design; others evolve into standalone products.
Systems & Platforms
A growing collection of applications, tools, and platforms spanning:
- Engineering billing and reporting
- Surveying automation
- Accounting integrations
- AI-assisted documentation
- Internal workflow systems
This site serves as a hub, with individual projects evolving independently as needs arise.
About
I am a licensed Professional Engineer with a background in site civil land development and a parallel practice in building technical systems.
My work is driven by a consistent principle: well-designed systems reduce risk, ambiguity, and wasted effort.
Whether designing stormwater infrastructure or automating an engineering billing workflow, I apply the same disciplined thinking—clear inputs, defensible logic, and outputs that people can trust.