Mike Hall

Built and operate three MCP (Model Context Protocol) servers that expose live system state as callable tools to any MCP client, alongside the Claude Code skills, context-isolated subagents, and commit-time checks that keep agent work bounded and reviewable.

• Bidirectional Knowledge Server: Built ctx-mcp, an MCP server fronting a PostgreSQL knowledge suite that agents both query and write back to, so methodologies and lessons learned in one session are retrievable in the next rather than re-derived.
• Telemetry-Driven Diagnosis: Built o2-mcp, exposing on-demand OpenObserve telemetry (errors, slow spans, failed jobs, distributed traces) as agent-callable tools, so an agent diagnoses a running system from observed behavior instead of inferring from source.
• Context as a Budgeted Resource: Designed context-isolated subagents that keep high-volume audit work out of the main conversation's context window, with per-client registration tooling and pre-commit hooks that reject any agent asset that isn't self-describing.

Skills: Model Context Protocol (MCP), Agentic Workflow Design, Claude Code, Anthropic API, LLM Tool Design, PostgreSQL, OpenTelemetry, OpenObserve, llama.cpp, whisper.cpp, Local Inference, PHI Scrubbing & Compliance, Ruby

Designing and building a real-time tactical game platform as a current hands-on laboratory for deterministic systems, product architecture, and controlled AI-assisted engineering.

• Designed a deterministic engine with replayable action logs and server-authoritative state transitions, making complex outcomes reproducible and independently verifiable.
• Built replay validation, adversarial coverage, and CI verification gates so state transitions can be checked across the complete lifecycle.
• Uses controlled agent workflows with bounded tasks, acceptance criteria, automated checks, and human-reviewed outputs rather than treating model output as authority.

Skills: TypeScript, Node.js, PostgreSQL, WebSockets, API Design, Distributed Systems, Deterministic Simulation, CI/CD, System Verification, AI-Augmented Development

Rails 8 platform for multi-source job ingestion, semantic matching, and application automation, built as a working laboratory for local-first LLM orchestration and treating scraped third-party text as hostile input.

• Multi-Source Data Ingestion: Built a multi-source Rails ingestion pipeline and PostgreSQL storage schema, unifying fragmented job market datasets for structured downstream analysis.
• Semantic Search & Embeddings: Implemented vector search embeddings via pgvector, enabling high-precision semantic matching between complex candidate profiles and job requirements.
• Local-First AI Orchestration: Designed provider-agnostic LLM orchestration layer (llama.cpp/Ollama with hosted Claude fallback), enforcing local-first inference for sensitive data with per-call model routing.
• Prompt Injection Defense: Built a 4-stage guardrails pipeline screening untrusted scraped text via weighted heuristics and instruction-density scoring before model ingestion.
• Browser Extension & Lifecycle Capture: Built an MV3 Chrome extension with 16 provider adapters that extracts postings from live ATS pages and captures full application lifecycles.
• Architectural Constraint Injection: Injected static analysis rules and architectural constraints into model context windows, preventing drift between generated outputs and security contracts.

Skills: Ruby on Rails, PostgreSQL, pgvector, Vector Search & Embeddings, LLM Orchestration, Prompt Injection Defense, Local Inference, Chrome Extensions (MV3), API Design, Data Pipelines, System Design, OpenTelemetry, Distributed Systems

Recorded, and later restored, an archive of 214 technical interviews with practitioners from the Ruby, JVM, and Software Craftsmanship movements, using a local-only AI pipeline to transcribe, structure, and cross-link a longitudinal record of primary-source material into a searchable knowledge graph.

• Local-Only AI Restoration Pipeline: Built a Whisper and local-LLM pipeline that transcribes, diarizes, and structures long-form interview audio entirely on-device, keeping a large private media corpus off third-party inference services.
• Schema-Validated Content Platform: Runs on a contract-validated data layer: every interview, asset, and transcript is checked against an explicit schema at build time, with referential-integrity checks that fail the build rather than publishing broken data.
• Semantic Cross-Linking & Taxonomy Generation: Generates a topic taxonomy, knowledge graph, and semantic cross-links across the corpus, turning an unstructured media archive into navigable, individually indexed pages.
• Primary-Source Capture: Conducted the original interviews on-site at GOTO Conference, Software Craftsmanship North America, RailsConf, and WindyCityRails, with practitioners including Dave Thomas, Stuart Halloway, Corey Haines, Sandro Mancuso, and Micah Martin.
• Digital Archaeology: Recovered and reconstructed material from defunct platforms and web archives, reconciling incomplete metadata across sources to restore provenance for recordings that would otherwise have been lost.

Skills: Local-First AI Inference, Whisper & Speech-to-Text, LLM-Assisted Content Structuring, Knowledge Graph Construction, Semantic Search & Taxonomy, Schema Validation & Data Contracts, Digital Preservation, Ruby, Jekyll, SEO & Information Architecture

Appointed as Senior Technical IC and Software Architecture Lead for the Acquisition lane of a regulated financial enterprise. Mapped the entire loan acquisition and origination pipeline end-to-end from visit to booked loan using the Panoramic View technique of longitudinal and latitudinal analysis from desktop browser to mainframe and back again at each step, and applied the same depth to the Affiliate API. Engineered an automated 5-phase PII deletion engine across 30+ tables, deployed enterprise distributed observability, and guided cross-team platform reliability.

• Originations IC Delivery & Instant Disbursement: Led the Originations Verification squad through consecutive Exceeds Expectations ratings, architecting and shipping an instant loan disbursement pipeline (funding to debit cards in minutes). Appointed Software Architect for the Acquisition Lane, later converting to Associate Director, Staff Engineer.
• Acquisition Workflow Enablement & Architecture Discovery: Founded the Acquisition Lane enablement team; mapped the loan acquisition and origination pipeline end-to-end from visit to booked loan (desktop browser to mainframe and back again at each step) and the Affiliate API at the same depth, identifying seven distinct lending funnels with a tracking initiative; architected an automated 5-phase PII remediation deletion engine across 30+ tables.
• Enterprise Resilience & DynamoDB Session Remediation: Diagnosed and eliminated a critical session-cookie overflow defect that caused 4% silent traffic loss of digital loan applications during e-signing; architected zero-downtime blue/green migration to DynamoDB session store with zero incidents.
• Enterprise Trace & Operational Alignment: Architected distributed telemetry across Rails distributed monoliths, MuleSoft APIs, and IBM mainframe backends; partnered directly with Cybersecurity, EMC, SRE, and Incident Command to align monitoring with end-to-end distributed tracing.
• Community Enablement & SRE Handoff: Founded weekly Geekfest@OMF and scaled the enterprise OpenTelemetry Working Group to 40+ cross-lane engineers; mentored and partnered with SRE leads to transition ongoing operational facilitation, establishing a durable community of practice.
• Applied AI & Innovation Leadership: Placed in two corporate hackathons building conversational agents with Rasa and a schema inference prototype; pioneered local LLM orchestration and privacy-conscious AI developer tooling at Geekfest@OMF.

Skills: Cross-Team Technical Leadership, Platform Architecture, Legacy Modernization, Architecture Discovery, Dependency Mapping, System Resilience, Incident Leadership, DynamoDB, Observability, OpenTelemetry, Distributed Systems, Ruby on Rails, PostgreSQL, AWS

Led backend stability, performance, and modernization for high-traffic Rails products, improving full-text search, campaign delivery pipelines, and data layer reliability while systems remained under production load.

• Search Infrastructure Modernization: Eliminated external cluster failure modes and reduced operating footprint by migrating legacy Sphinx to optimized MySQL full-text search and relational indices under live production traffic.
• Zero-Downtime Rails Upgrades: Led Ruby and Rails framework upgrades across core applications, sequencing database migrations to ensure zero downtime during platform modernization.

Skills: Ruby on Rails, MySQL, Full-Text Search, Redis, Sidekiq, SendGrid Async Pipelines, Data Analytics & SQL, CI/CD, System Observability, Backend Architecture

Short-term senior contract on the Contacts team of a large-scale PHP/MySQL CRM platform. Focused on testability, performance, and change safety inside a tightly coupled legacy backend while extending the Ember.js frontend test suite.

• Legacy Query Modernization: Replaced ad-hoc global data access with structured, cacheable query patterns in the PHP backend, enabling unit testability and sub-second query execution.
• Frontend Verification Gates: Hardened Ember.js automated test suites across core CRM contact workflows, creating safety gates that enabled non-breaking legacy PHP refactoring.

Skills: PHP, MySQL, Ember.js, JavaScript, Legacy System Modernization, Backend System Architecture, Automated Testing, Performance Optimization

Conducted an on-site architectural and operational assessment for an at-risk federal software program (DoD MEPS), delivering viability analysis and risk mitigation recommendations directly to executive leadership.

• Federal Program Viability Assessment: Conducted on-site operational research at DoD military processing facilities (MEPS), identifying critical disconnects between enlistment workflows and proposed software models.
• Executive Architecture Advisory: Delivered architectural risk analysis directly to executive leadership, defining remediation paths to mitigate contractual and delivery liabilities.

Skills: System Resilience, Platform Architecture, Federal Software Assessment, Operational Field Research

Owned enterprise assessment workflows, leading correctness and platform security in a high-concurrency environment.

• Assessment Query Optimization: Optimized complex PostgreSQL calculations across high-stakes exam scoring engines, eliminating calculation drift and reducing query latency.
• JWT Response Verification: Implemented JWT-based cryptographic payload signing and once-only processing, securing exam submission pipelines against client-side tampering.
• Secure Embedded Client APIs: Designed secure cross-origin API boundaries for embedded enterprise assessment clients, establishing explicit authentication and trust contracts.

Skills: Ruby, Ruby on Rails, PostgreSQL, JWT Authentication, Backend System Architecture, Secure API Design, Database Performance Optimization, Observability and Logging

Owned API design and modernization strategy, leading incremental legacy migration for a high-volume digital marketing platform.

• Strangler-Fig Modernization: Architected incremental modernization roadmap, replacing a high-risk full rewrite with a phased Strangler-Fig migration under production load.
• Internal API Gateway: Built internal API Gateway with standardized JSON contracts and token authentication, safely isolating legacy backend services.
• Automated CI/CD Verification: Introduced automated static analysis and security scanning into deployment pipelines, preventing regression and vulnerability drift.

Skills: Platform Architecture, API Gateway Design, Ruby on Rails, PostgreSQL, React, Redis, Legacy System Modernization, Secure API Design, Data Migration Strategy

Owned end-to-end platform architecture, leading high-throughput data integration for an early-stage social media startup. The product, TheSocReport, ended when the upstream data taps closed: Twitter's firehose shutdown and the closing of Facebook's and Instagram's user-intelligence APIs removed the inputs the analytics depended on.

• Architected a social analytics platform integrating Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram APIs, delivering unified audience engagement metrics.
• Designed an asynchronous ingestion pipeline using Sidekiq Enterprise and Redis, processing real-time social streams under burst traffic.
• Implemented a PostgreSQL JSONB document storage architecture, allowing fast schema evolution across heterogeneous third-party API payloads.
• Automated multi-cloud deployment pipelines across Heroku and AWS, establishing reproducible staging and production infrastructure.

Skills: Ruby, Ruby on Rails, PostgreSQL, Redis, Sidekiq, Amazon RDS, Heroku, DigitalOcean, Twitter API, Facebook Graph API, Instagram API

Hired as a contractor by the founder to lead the open-source transition of the Coderwall developer reputation platform, a Y Combinator-backed professional network for software engineers (856 GitHub stars, 304 forks). Delivered security hardening, proprietary service extraction, infrastructure modernization, and community leadership as the top contributor to the open-source codebase.

• Open-Source Transition & Security Hardening: Led open-source transition for a YC-backed developer network (856 GitHub stars, 304 forks), closing critical SQL injection, XSS, and Symbol DoS vulnerabilities before public release.
• Proprietary Service Decoupling: Extracted proprietary billing engines and scoring algorithms into isolated backend services with clean API stubs, safeguarding business logic.
• Database Migration & Sidekiq Modernization: Executed two-phase database migration from MongoDB to PostgreSQL and converted legacy Resque jobs to Sidekiq, cutting operational costs.

Skills: Ruby, Ruby on Rails, PostgreSQL, Redis, Sidekiq, ElasticSearch, AWS S3, Heroku, JavaScript, Backbone.js, MongoDB, Vagrant, Travis CI

Owned payment integrations and local development infrastructure, leading system modernization for an SOA-based marketing platform.

• Integrated the Chargify subscription payment platform, launching self-service recurring billing and account management.
• Standardized local development environments using multi-VM Vagrant orchestration, eliminating developer environment drift against production.

Skills: Ruby, Ruby on Rails, PostgreSQL, Redis, Sidekiq, Riak, Vagrant, NGINX, Capistrano, Bash, Ubuntu

Owned core business system development, leading AWS deployment modernization and CI implementation.

• Implemented custom tracking and analytics tools, enabling targeted monetization and direct platform revenue.
• Standardized automated testing and staging environments, establishing reliable continuous integration across the engineering team.
• Streamlined AWS deployment pipelines and server images, eliminating deployment downtime during peak consumer traffic spikes.

Skills: Ruby, Ruby on Rails, AWS EC2, AWS RDS, PostgreSQL, Redis, Resque, Capistrano, NGINX, Sidekiq, Logentries

Owned core backend systems for fraud and taxonomy, leading global engineering enablement during hyper-growth.

• Centralized Taxonomy Service: Implemented merchant taxonomy service in Java and MySQL, eliminating categorization drift across distributed product teams during hypergrowth.
• Analytical Fraud Detection: Built analytical fraud detection queries in Vertica and conducted exploratory spikes on Hadoop and Clojure for transaction anomaly scoring.
• Merchant Analytics Pipelines: Built high-throughput merchant analytics tools in Ruby and CouchDB, surfacing market insights for global sales operations.
• Global Engineering Enablement: Redesigned technical onboarding curricula, standardizing engineering practices and shortening time-to-first-commit for 100+ global engineering hires.

Skills: Ruby, Java, Clojure, CouchDB, Vertica, Hadoop, MySQL, Redis, JavaScript, Bash

Delivered backend systems and services as a consultant across multiple clients, including Sears, Leapfrog Online, and Groupon, supporting early-stage scaling and data-driven operations in high-growth environments.

• Self-Service Analytics Platforms: Built reporting platforms for Leapfrog Online, enabling business stakeholders to query and export data warehouse analytics autonomously.
• Enterprise B2B Catalog Services: Developed commercial B2B sales and product catalog integration services for Sears, opening new enterprise revenue streams.
• Hypergrowth Transaction Pipelines: Engineered deal-processing services and fraud analysis pipelines at Groupon, stabilizing backend transaction infrastructure during extreme user growth.

Skills: C#, Ruby, Ruby on Rails, JavaScript, SQL Server, MySQL, Git, RSpec, Resque, NGINX

Owned all technical strategy and system development, leading lifecycle modernization for multi-firm consulting teams.

• Directed technical strategy and end-to-end software development across multi-firm consulting teams, establishing reliable delivery standards.
• Automated continuous integration pipelines using Subversion and CruiseControl.NET, eliminating manual build errors.
• Engineered standardized VMware development environments, reducing contractor onboarding time from days to hours.

Skills: C#, ASP.NET, Microsoft SQL Server, Subversion, CruiseControl.NET, VMWare, IIS, JavaScript, JSON

Owned cross-system integration stability, leading defect resolution in regulated financial workflows.

• Diagnosed and resolved complex distributed integration failures across SOAP-based web services, restoring reliability to high-value financial transaction workflows.
• Eliminated data desynchronization bugs between .NET middle-tier services and legacy mainframe accounting systems, ensuring exact reporting accuracy for institutional clients.

Skills: C#, ASP.NET, SOAP, XML, Microsoft SQL Server, Transact-SQL (T-SQL), Visual Basic .NET (VB.NET), JSON

Owned enterprise supply-chain integration, leading cross-system data unification for a global mobile device distributor.

• Orchestrated an enterprise BizTalk integration unifying purchase orders, inventory, and financial systems across global distribution centers.
• Designed and built an operational dashboard giving leadership real-time visibility into global supply-chain throughput.
• Integrated Solomon accounting software with custom internal platforms using SubSonic ORM and T-SQL, eliminating manual accounting reconciliation.

Skills: C#, ASP.NET, Microsoft BizTalk Server, Microsoft SQL Server, SubSonic ORM, Solomon Accounting Software, Transact-SQL (T-SQL), XML, SOAP

Owned real-time inventory systems, leading transactional integrity and iterative delivery for revenue-critical operations.

• Architected a real-time inventory locking and transaction reconciliation service, preventing race conditions on concurrent ticket sales and generating $2M+ in protected revenue.
• Introduced and led Scrum agile practices for the core transaction engineering team, improving sprint delivery predictability.

Skills: C#, ASP.NET, Microsoft BizTalk Server, Microsoft SQL Server, Scrum, Transact-SQL (T-SQL), SOAP, CodeSmith API, JSON, JavaScript

Owned critical feature enhancements for an industrial invoicing system, leading performance optimization in high-volume billing workflows.

• Engineered core invoicing features in VB.NET, streamlining high-volume industrial billing workflows.
• Redesigned stored procedures and optimized SQL Server query execution plans, significantly reducing latency in critical end-of-month billing cycles.

Skills: ASP.NET, C#, Microsoft SQL Server, Transact-SQL (T-SQL), Visual Basic .NET (VB.NET), Windows Server

Owned retail feature delivery, leading iterative execution in a complex enterprise sales portfolio application.

• Introduced Scrum agile practices to cross-functional enterprise teams, increasing release predictability and milestone transparency.
• Developed core retail portfolio features in C#, ASP.NET, and SQL Server, supporting high-volume device sales operations.

Skills: C#, ASP.NET, Microsoft SQL Server, SOAP, Scrum, Transact-SQL (T-SQL), XML

Owned reusable UI component architecture, leading frontend delivery for a personal health monitoring platform.

• Developed a modular library of reusable ASP.NET Web Forms components, standardizing UI consistency across patient-facing health monitoring modules.
• Optimized SQL Server query performance and indexing, ensuring fast rendering for real-time patient health visualization metrics.

Skills: ASP.NET, C#, Microsoft SQL Server, JavaScript, HTML, CSS

Owned dynamic reporting architecture, leading the platform transition from classic ASP to .NET environments.

• Developed a custom report rules engine and UI, allowing end users to generate dynamic reports without engineering intervention.
• Engineered a dynamic SQL rules wizard using early JSON data structures to support flexible reporting schemas.
• Migrated legacy reporting components to ASP.NET Web Forms, establishing modern .NET architectural standards.

Skills: ASP.NET, Active Server Pages (ASP), JavaScript, JSON, Microsoft SQL Server, Transact-SQL (T-SQL), Visual Studio .NET, CSS

Owned kiosk-based HR modules, leading frontend modernization for high-friction factory floor environments.

• Engineered touch-screen interfaces and automated job-bidding modules for factory floor kiosks, streamlining workforce shift operations.
• Refactored legacy VBScript workflows with client-side JavaScript, significantly improving UI responsiveness on embedded kiosk hardware.

Skills: Active Server Pages (ASP), VBScript, JavaScript, Microsoft SQL Server, CSS, HTML

Owned sales lead tracking systems, leading data automation and business continuity during a high-risk vendor transition.

• Engineered an automated sales lead ingestion and validation pipeline, eliminating manual data entry errors.
• Stepped in as direct technical lead following an unexpected vendor departure, maintaining uninterrupted sales tracking continuity.

Skills: Microsoft Access, Visual Basic, Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), Visual SourceSafe

Owned custom web delivery and early OCR prototyping, leading cross-platform implementations for enterprise clients.

• Designed an early-stage OCR pipeline using Unix shell scripting and pattern extraction, parsing and digitizing semi-structured paper receipts into relational databases.
• Delivered custom web applications and database integrations for enterprise clients, including Harley-Davidson.
• Transitioned from JSP to Active Server Pages and Microsoft Access while learning the source-control and delivery practices of the Windows web stack.

Skills: Java, JSP, Active Server Pages (ASP), Microsoft Access, Visual SourceSafe, Microsoft SQL Server, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, VBScript

Owned critical site infrastructure, leading early logistics workflow automation in a high-availability environment.

• Managed site server infrastructure and hardware upgrades, ensuring 24/7 uptime for regional logistics operations.
• Prototyped an automated shipment booking workflow, reducing manual scheduling overhead for freight operations.

Skills: Windows NT, Windows 98