Forbes, August 2023
Forbes 30 Under 30 Seattle 2023
Recognized for my work at Snapbar and for co-founding DubHacks, the Pacific Northwest's largest collegiate hackathon.
Press, talks, and podcasts
Coverage of my work, talks I've given, and podcasts I've been on. Organizing an event or a podcast? You'll find bios, talk topics, and photos in the press kit below.
Recognition
GeekWire guest post, June 2025
Takeaways from the AI Engineer World's Fair: The startup playbook is being rewritten in real time
What I learned at the AI Engineer World's Fair in San Francisco, and what it means for how startups get built.
GeekWire, June 2025
Seattle vs. San Francisco: Founders weigh pros and cons of each startup hub
Featured alongside other Seattle founders discussing the strengths of each tech ecosystem during a trip I organized to San Francisco for the AI Engineer World's Fair.
GeekWire, January 2023
Startup Survival: How a pandemic pivot helped this photo booth company see a bigger picture
A feature on Snapbar's pandemic pivot from photo booths to software, and the role I played in it.
GeekWire, 2014
Inside DubHacks: UW hosts inaugural collegiate hackathon
Coverage of the founding of DubHacks, now the Pacific Northwest's largest collegiate hackathon, which I co-founded at the University of Washington.
Speaking
DubHacks, October 2024
DubHacks 10-Year Anniversary Keynote
Co-delivered the keynote at DubHacks' 10-year anniversary, reflecting on the founding story and the hackathon's impact on the Pacific Northwest tech community.
Foundations Seattle, March 2025
Vibe Coding in Production (with Claude Code): AI Engineering Best Practices
Workshop on AI-assisted development using Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, and other tools. Shared practical workflows for dramatically accelerating development with AI code generation.
Organizing an event?
Book me to speakPodcasts
Dam! Podcast, November 2025
Northwest Hydropower Podcast: Inside Scoop on AI (feat. Patrick Ellis)
Discussion on AI development and practical use cases from the perspective of a startup CTO. Going beyond data center demands to explore the technology side of AI and real-world applications.
Leverage Pod, July 2025
Top Claude Code Workflows for Founders
Deep dive into my favorite Claude Code workflows and how I use AI-assisted coding to build products faster as a startup founder and CTO.
Press kit
Short bio
Patrick Ellis is CTO & Co-Founder of Snapbar, an experiential marketing platform for events, used by Disney, Nike, Google, and hundreds of other brands. A 2023 Forbes 30 Under 30 Seattle honoree, he shares the AI engineering workflows he uses in production with 23,000+ subscribers on YouTube. He also co-founded DubHacks, the Pacific Northwest's largest collegiate hackathon.
Long bio
Patrick Ellis is CTO & Co-Founder of Snapbar, an AI-native platform for experiential photo and video marketing at live events, used by Disney, Nike, Coca-Cola, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, FIFA, and hundreds of other brands. Since 2020, the products he has built at Snapbar have generated eight figures in revenue, and in 2023 he was named to Forbes 30 Under 30 Seattle. On YouTube, where he has 23,000+ subscribers, he shares the Claude Code and AI engineering workflows he uses in production, and his open-source Claude Code workflows have 3,900+ stars on GitHub. Before Snapbar, he co-founded DubHacks, the Pacific Northwest's largest collegiate hackathon, and was an engineer at two venture-backed San Francisco startups that were later acquired. Based in Seattle, he is a Resident Expert at AI House (AI2 Incubator) and a member of Foundations Seattle.
Topics I speak on
- It's not the model, it's your harness: building with AI agents in production
- AI agents for founders: practical workflows for shipping faster
- Can 20 people build a unicorn? Capital efficiency in the age of AI agents
- Building community that outlasts you: lessons from DubHacks
Keynotes, workshops, panels, and podcasts.
For talks, interviews, and podcasts, get in touch.