Staff Software Engineer

I make difficult production systems understandable and safe to change.

I am a Staff Software Engineer who helps teams modernize valuable systems they cannot afford to rewrite. I trace opaque production behavior, hidden coupling, distributed failures, and risky transactional workflows to make the next safe decision visible.

📄 Read Full Résumé (ATS) See the Work Contact Mike

Make the next safe improvement visible.

When no one person has the whole picture, delivery slows and risk hides in the gaps. I connect business goals, system behavior, evidence, and ownership so teams can decide together and move with confidence.

Panoramic View

Start with what the system actually does.

Panoramic View is my practical framework for legacy modernization: map the business process, trace what the software actually does across runtime boundaries, and resolve the differences before changing anything.

The user of the system might be a customer, an employee, an automated process, or an AI agent. The same questions apply.

Logs, traces, diagrams, documentation, and AI-assisted analysis are inputs to the map. They are not substitutes for understanding the system.

  • What does the business expect to happen?
  • What does the software actually do?
  • Where do those views agree, diverge, or remain unknown?

02 / Architecture Retrospectives

Proof that the work changes outcomes.

Each case study starts with a problem people recognize, explains the useful intervention, and shows the outcome that made the next decision easier.

Database Engineering & Compliance

Database Archaeology: Safe Multi-Table PII Purge Engine

Read Case Study

Enterprise Rails Resilience

Restoring a Hidden 4% of Customer Applications

Read Case Study

Fintech State Machines

Instant Money: Real-Time Debit Disbursement Architecture

Read Case Study

03 / Evaluation Paths

Start wherever you have time.

  1. 01 Full Résumé & ATS Exports Canonical ATS plain-text parse, structured JSON-LD credentials, and a focused career history.
  2. 02 5 Tailored Role Archetypes Targeted resumes for Staff Systems Architect, Staff Platform Lead, Staff Observability Specialist, Founding Staff AI Engineer, and Senior Rails Contractor.
  3. 03 Technical Oral History Archive Searchable transcripts and practitioner interviews with software pioneers (Uncle Bob Martin, DHH, Rich Hickey, Corey Haines) and community organizers.
  4. 04 WWWorkRemote: Human-Supervised Job Search A local-first system for ingesting, ranking, triaging, and advancing job leads through applications and interview preparation.

04 / Public work

Documenting the craft over time.

I have written technical guides, spoken at conferences, founded grassroots engineering communities (SCMC, Geekfest@OMF), and recorded oral histories of modern software development.