linkedin.com/in/m9chang
michael-chang.ca

Michael Chang

michael.chang@hey.com
+1.650.691.5545

Work Experience

Backend Lead

Backend team

Flybits

Toronto, ON, Canada

Sept 2025 – Present

Co-maintained 60+ Go/PostgreSQL/MongoDB microservices backing the Flybits platform
Kept the team on track to ship features for onboarding a customer with 500k+ users
Collaborated with product and design to review designs and requirements for upgrades to Flybits' merchant-funded offers solution
Interviewed and hired one developer and one co-op student

Member of Technical Staff

Startup

Stealth

San Francisco, CA

Apr 2025 – Jul 2025

Worked with Cursor, Gemini Flash, Go, Cloud Run, Google Cloud Storage, Spanner, Firebase, iOS/Swift

Software Engineer

Startup

Fractional AI

San Francisco, CA

Aug 2024 – Jan 2025

Evaluated phone AI agent platforms (Bland, Synthflow, Retell) for prospective clients
Set up Airbyte connector and ETL pipeline for a Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) system to automate data flow into customers' OpenAI Assistants
Built tool to match PDFs to parts in the PLM system (Python, Django, PostgreSQL)
Implemented proof-of-concept FastAPI microservice that uses AI to classify items

Software Engineer

Main App team

YouTube

San Bruno, CA

Jun 2020 – Jul 2024

Improved performance (low-end) and reach (high-end) of certain features in the YouTube app using device performance data
Added dimensions and metrics to the data warehouse to measure impact
Wrote hooks for round-tripping device performance classification data between microservices

Software Engineer

Video Editor team

YouTube

San Bruno, CA

Apr 2014 – May 2020

Integrated Mediapipe into server-side Editor service (C++)
- Co-wrote pairs of operators (Calculators) for phone GPUs and server CPUs
- Authored initial effects graphs, including selfie segmentation / background blur
Various migrations: added column to database table primary key, static workflows to in-house Go / Golang framework, Python middleware to C++, MySQL to Spanner

Co-ops and Internships

Software Developer (co-op)

Startup

Encircle

Kitchener, ON, Canada

Sep 2013 – Dec 2013

Worked on Encircle's Android, iOS, and Web applications
Updated backend to send HTML emails (previously plain-text) and unsubscribe bounces
Set up phabricator (code review) and jenkins (continuous integration) servers

Software Engineer Intern

Non-profit

Khan Academy

Mountain View, CA

Jan 2013 – Apr 2013

Developed Python/Flask server endpoint to store and tag teacher-written questions
Co-developed front-end for teachers to write, edit and tag questions

Software Engineering Intern

Video Editor team

YouTube

San Bruno, CA

May 2012 – Aug 2012

Built controls with JavaScript and the Google Closure Compiler for basic audio editing
Updated Python logic and MySQL database schema for YouTube audio swap

Agile Engineer (co-op)

Startup

Xtreme Labs

Toronto, ON, Canada

Sep 2011 – Dec 2011

Pair-programmed to port an app for a large motion picture exhibitor to Android tablets
Also worked on a Ruby on Rails app and a Blackberry (Java ME) app for clients

Analytics (Intern)

Mobile team

Facebook

Palo Alto, CA

Jan 2011 – Apr 2011

Built internal dashboards using internal tools for product managers within Facebook
Ran ad-hoc queries (Hive/Hadoop) regarding mobile users and devices

Web Developer

SharpSchool

Summer 2008 – 2010

Built a gradebook for teachers in Silverlight and dashboards using Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services
Configured and ran a video live stream for a webinar and discussion panel

Awards

3rd Place, Make Impacts AI Hackathon

2025

Used the Replicate API, generative image-to-image models, Cloudflare Workers + D1, and TypeScript to build an app where you upload a selfie and it turns you into a witch/wizard. Interactive, working live demo where I asked audience members to upload selfies to try it. Handled dozens of concurrent requests without falling over.

Judge's Choice Award (FTC Team 3431)

2009

I was the lead programmer on our high-school robotics team, leading a team of three programmers. Collaborated with teammates iterating on hardware robot designs, and incorporated feedback from our team's drivers into the robot's control software.

This award qualified our team for the FIRST Tech Challenge World Championships in Atlanta.

Bronze medal, Canadian Computing Competition

2009

I was one of twenty students selected to participate in Stage 2, which is used to select the Canadian team in the International Olympiad in Informatics(IOI).

Hobbies

I ran a book club from 2019 to 2022, and was a makerspace coordinator at Google from 2015 to 2024.

Education

Bachelor of Software Engineering

University of Waterloo

2009 – 2014