Experience
Michael O'Neal
Senior Software Engineer — AI-native systems, full-stack architecture, and distributed systems.
Hands-on Engineering
Building Systems That Work in the Real World
I am a hands-on Senior Software Engineer with experience building production software systems across fullstack web development, backend automation, cloud infrastructure, and applied AI.
My recent work focuses on AI-native software: automation systems, computer vision workflows, fullstack applications, deployment pipelines, and operational tooling that solves real-world problems outside of demo environments.
I am strongest where product, infrastructure, and automation overlap:
- ✓Unreliable external systems
- ✓Missing APIs
- ✓Operational constraints
- ✓Workflow automation
- ✓Production debugging
- ✓Systems integration
- ✓Scalable delivery and performance tuning
Abstractions & Metal
Every layer of abstraction, from the bottom up
I have deep experience across operating systems, network latency, distributed queue management, and relational database modeling. From there, I transitioned across every architectural layer as modern software evolved:
- Systems & Backend: Deep understanding of operating systems, network latency, distributed queue management, and relational database modeling.
- Fullstack & UI: Building high-fidelity dashboards and responsive admin flows using TypeScript, React, and modern CSS/Tailwind stacks.
- Cloud Platform: Automated multi-tenant clusters, infrastructure-as-code deployments (Terraform), container orchestration (Kubernetes, Docker), and unified observability pipelines.
- Applied AI: Custom computer vision models, fine-tuned open-weight LLMs with dedicated customer inference infrastructure, automated eval loops, and pipeline caching.
Proven Track Record
Selected Engineering Work
Tylt / ClaimHawk
Principal Software Engineer (2020–Present). Built the technology foundation at Tylt, which evolved into ClaimHawk — a healthcare automation platform specializing in dental insurance claims processing. Architected and developed the complete product stack, including frontend applications, backend services, data pipelines, desktop automation, machine learning systems, infrastructure, and internal engineering tools. Company acquired May 2026. ClaimHawk remains active.
AM — Agentic Software Engineering Platform
Creator & Engineer (2025–Present). Designed and built an independent agentic software engineering platform at helloam.bot. Developed alongside ClaimHawk and used throughout ClaimHawk development to coordinate AI coding agents through structured workflows.
Uber (Contract)
Senior Software Engineer — Data Migration (2014–2015). Joined a core engineering team during Uber's hypergrowth phase, supporting migration of hundreds of PostgreSQL databases into hybrid MySQL and Schemaless architectures. Built ETL pipelines, automated testing suites, and atomic migration tooling for zero-data-loss database migrations.
Off-Grid Navigation
Ocean passages and practical problem solving
In 2019, I stepped away from the desk to sail the Pacific coast down to Colombia. Navigating a small boat in open ocean forces you to deal with hardware failures, electrical breakdowns, and unreliable routing systems under extreme constraints.
When plans broke in remote regions, there was no customer support or extraction. You fix it with the tools and systems you have aboard.
I bring this exact operational resilience back to software engineering — taking complete ownership, adapting immediately when production pipelines break, and engineering robust, clean fallback paths.