👋 Hi, I'm Mike!
I'm a husband, I'm a father, and I'm Catholic. I'm an Ubuntu Linux user, and I'm a staff software engineer at Strava. I've been working for Strava for over seven years and I continue to love working on an app I'm passionate about while solving interesting problems along the way!
I have experience working on performance, scalability, feature development, systems architecture, and developer experience in a wide range of technologies including Linux, Ruby, PHP, Scala, Java, Docker, SQL, Redis, Kafka, Javascript, and Android. I enjoy solving diverse technical challenges at scale, from fine-tuning database queries to improving user experience or architecting new systems that can handle our growing user base.
Before joining Strava, I worked for a variety of tech companies (Pariveda, SpotX, and Zen Planner), and I even taught high school math for a couple years as part of the Denver Teacher Residency.
In my free time, I enjoy working on DIY tech projects, from 3D printing and electronics to home networking and Linux laptops. I write about these projects here on my blog, along with software development tutorials and technology reviews, to share what I learn along the way in hopes that others find it interesting and useful too!
Recent Blog Posts
Personal Finance in the Agentic Age
27 Oct 2026 · TechnologyFor several years, I’ve done a deep dive into my own personal finances once a year. I think of it like an annual review with a financial planner. Except I don’t have a financial planner. I do the review myself. AI has become increasingly useful for helping me with this. A year or two ago, I’d write an intricate prompt that asked the LLM to role play as my financial planner doing an annual review, while I paste in details and answer questions. That general idea still works, but it’s become much faster and easier with modern LLMs and MCPs! This year, I used a simpler prompt and had the LLM do most of the work itself, using an MCP connected to Lunch Money, and the results were Awesome!
Hacking with Claude on a $27 Smart Watch
19 Aug 2026 · TechnologyThe Pine Time is a $27 smart watch that runs open source firmware. I’ve had one sitting in the back of a drawer for a year or two. When I saw @steveruizok’s Tweet about hacking on ESP32 devices with Claude, I found some inspiration to pull my PineTime out of the drawer and see what Claude might be capable of!
Apps
