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Michael Hamilton

Experience

Production AI at Fortune 5 scale. From Marine Corps to engineering leadership.

  1. Director of Software Engineering

    PreAct Technologies
    Apr 2024–Dec 2025

    LiDAR-based perception systems combining real-time sensing, embedded AI, and sensor fusion for vehicle protection applications.

    • Reduced merge-to-canary deployment time from 2 weeks to 4 hours — an 84x improvement — by automating the full software delivery pipeline through CI/CD infrastructure, structured release governance, and auditable deployment patterns.
    • Drove organization-wide adoption of agentic coding tools (Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, Cursor) with governance standards, paved-path patterns, code-quality guardrails, and measurable PR throughput outcomes; tracked AI tooling ROI in developer velocity.
    • Owned the AI/ML roadmap end-to-end for the Protect collision avoidance system: production embedded AI inference combining 3 LiDAR sensors, NVIDIA Jetson Orin edge compute, and sensor fusion pipelines deployed across a Fortune 5 fleet.
    • Architected the full edge-to-cloud platform: Jetson devices, cellular telemetry upload, cloud ingestion, observability, and a fleet management dashboard.
    • Managed both individual contributors and engineering managers across hardware, firmware, cloud, embedded AI, and QA disciplines.
    • Established engineering standards across reliability, testing, observability, and incident response. Built a culture of ownership and continuous improvement.
    • Stayed hands-on through architecture decisions, code reviews, and complex technical problem-solving while running the broader org.
    • As the company entered wind-down in late 2025, led the engineering organization through final delivery to the Fortune 5 customer, IP preservation for downstream licensing, and team transitions.

  2. Engineering Manager

    PreAct Technologies
    Nov 2022–Apr 2024
    • Player-coach driving the company's pivot to a LiDAR-based protection system. Contributed directly to embedded AI and sensor fusion code while introducing structured engineering processes into a previously ad-hoc engineering culture.

  3. Lead Software Development Engineer

    Opsivity
    2021–2022
    • Led 12-person geographically distributed development team building a connected knowledge base SaaS platform for field service teams.
    • Managed full product lifecycle from architecture through production deployment.
    • First leadership role managing a distributed offshore engineering team at scale.

  4. Earlier Software Engineering Roles

    nLIGHT, RealWear, Polaris Industries, Sigma Design
    2017–2021
    • Software engineering roles spanning manufacturing execution systems, Android-based industrial wearables, and embedded diagnostics. Built REST APIs, data pipelines, and platform features in C#/.NET, Python, Node.js, and SQL Server across regulated, safety-conscious development environments.

  5. Gunnery Sergeant (E-7)

    US Marine Corps
    Jun 1993–Jun 2013
    • 20-year career across leadership and technical roles, culminating as a Gunnery Sergeant leading organizations of up to 200 personnel in operational and training environments.
    • Recognized for operational excellence, team development, and the ability to deliver mission-critical results under pressure.
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