Mike Hall

Contributed to platform modernization efforts during a period of organizational transition and acquisition. Designed and implemented new API layers to safely expose internal capabilities, while working with the Customer Funnel team to evaluate and de-risk a planned rewrite of a large legacy system. Identified fundamental data and system knowledge gaps that informed a shift toward incremental modernization rather than wholesale replacement.

• Designed and built an API Gateway to expose selected internal services through well-defined, secure interfaces, enabling controlled integration with internal and external consumers.
• Evaluated the feasibility of a full rewrite of a legacy customer-facing system and demonstrated that unclear data lineage and billions of existing records made a big-bang migration impractical and high risk.
• Proposed and validated an incremental modernization strategy in which a new API layer operated alongside the legacy system, allowing new features to be developed independently while legacy functionality was migrated selectively.
• Designed a two-tier frontend architecture that separated user experience iteration from backend system constraints, reducing regression risk while enabling faster experimentation without destabilizing core systems.
• Modernized critical integration points by wrapping legacy functionality in Rails APIs, extending the useful life of the existing platform while enabling gradual transition to newer components.
• Reduced operational and maintenance risk by introducing code quality and security tooling, improving visibility into system health and failure modes.

Skills: Platform Architecture, API Gateway Design, Legacy System Modernization, Incremental Migration Strategies, Secure API Design, Data Migration Strategy, Ruby, Ruby on Rails, PostgreSQL, React, Redis, CI/CD and Code Quality Tooling