Michael Geary

Software Designer, Developer, and Engineer

Areas of expertise

• Design and build web and native apps to delight users and meet their needs.
• Talk with users, listen to what they want, and build it for them. And then fix it when I get it wrong.
• Mentor and help other developers be successful.
• Web front end and back end development.
• Windows applications and low level code.
• Data importers.
• Hardware control.
• Create and document APIs and SDKs.
• Data visualization and geographic data and mapping. I love geography!
• System integration for VR apps in Unity and Unreal Engine.
• Reverse engineering.
• Technical writing.
• Extensive experience in Python, JavaScript, TypeScript, Angular, Ruby, C, C++, C#, Win32, .NET, Flask. Also fluent in many machine languages (yes, to the bit level), protocol buffers, GIS data formats, PostgreSQL, PostGIS.
• Other areas of familiarity (not an expert, but comfortable jumping into any of these as part of a project):
  • Lua, Swift, Objective-C, Kotlin, Java, Android, iOS, macOS, Rails, Django, OpenResty, OpenGL, WebGL.
  • Electrical engineering, radio and signal processing - electronic hardware and ham radio got me into programming!
  • I learn quickly what I need to get any job done.

Career highlights

• McDonald's/IBM, 2020-2024
  • Figured out a "kludgy" way for the team to use Python debuggers, after a change to a new build system precluded that.
  • Created and maintained an automatically updated Windows VM for McD's Point of Sale system.
  • Built a "sleepless" version of the QA test code that removed all time.sleep() calls, cut the time for a full test suite from 4 hours to 1.5 hours, and made the tests completely reliable instead of stochastic.
• Alteryx, 2020
  • Design and development of a new Python API.
• Wing (Alphabet), 2018-2019
  • Airspace data importers - converted C++ import code to Python, made the code easier to maintain and reduced incremental build time from 8 minutes to 1 second.
  • Geospatial data viewer and KML visualization tools.
  • Web interface for legacy command line manufacturing test application.
• Pegasystems, 2017-2018
  • Interceptor for Flash ActionScript to inject bytecode and allow automation of user activity.
• Quiver, 2016-2017
  • Windows API interception, window subclassing, anti-hacking measures, fix multithreaded memory leaks.
• Willdan, 2016
  • Open source custom uploader for SharePoint documents.
  • Interactive office location map.
• EaseVR, 2015-2016
  • Open source analytics client libraries for Unity, Unreal Engine, C++, and JavaScript.
• SRI International, 2016
  • System to import LIDAR point clouds into Unreal Engine for display in VR.
• Jaunt VR, 2015-2016
  • "Over the shoulder mode" using OpenGL to display VR content on external display.
  • Unity launcher sequence for Cardboard on Android and iOS.
  • Hacked Cardboard JVM bytecode to fix "flash of unwanted user interface" (FOUUI).
  • Restructured C++/JUCE/OpenGL player code for easier maintenance.
  • Numerous other "fit and finish" improvements and bug fixes.
• Skype (Microsoft), 2015
  • Interactive traffic visualization map to show what other countries people in each country talk to.
• Electronic Frontier Foundation, 2008
  • Used my PolyGonzo open source library to help develop OurVoteLive map of election problems and inquiries.
• Google, 2008-2014
  • Election results and voter information maps for US and foreign elections, featured on Google home page and syndicated to numerous news sites, with custom versions for CNN and Fox News.
  • PolyGonzo open source library for fast polygon drawing and hit testing in the Google Maps API.
  • 3D tour of Vancouver 2010 Olympics using Google Earth API.
  • KML visualizations of election results.
• Persado, 2013-2014
  • Website editor to allow experimental changes to a site without changing back end code, using a "man in the middle" Sinatra proxy server and JavaScript API for editing and comparing versions.
• OnLive, 2013-2014
  • OpenGL system to overlay multiple web views running in separate threads onto a single display.
  • Many other front end and back end features for their game launcher.
• Carnegie Institution for Science, 2010-2012
  • CLASlite Online, an interactive web viewer for Amazon rainforest satellite images and deforestation using Google Earth Engine.
• 360 Cities, 2008-2010
  • Optimized a location clustering program to reduce its run time from eight hours to 30 seconds.
• Roundarch Isobar (Nystrom), 2009-2010
  • Google Earth API library for interactive drawing and markup tools on a 3D globe for education.
• jQuery, 2006-2010
  • One of the first contributors to the project before its 1.0 release.
  • Contributed several architectural improvements to the library.
  • Helped train many of the earliest jQuery developers by answering questions on the mailing list.
• Ageekie, 2007-2008
  • Developed PdfChip, a way to connect a PDF datasheet directly to a development board, so you could view ARM chip pin status in the PDF and click on pins to toggle them on the actual chip.
• Zvents, 2005-2007
  • Event calendar and map widgets for Zvents customers to embed in their sites.
  • Rails plugin to support ClearSilver template engine.
  • Helped team solve JavaScript and browser compatibility issues.
• Adobe Systems, 1990-1995, 2002-2005
  • Created and documented interactive multimedia JavaScript API for PDF files.
  • Improved email support for Lotus Notes and other email clients.
  • Introduced the use of VMware for compatibility testing.
  • Split Acrobat's monolithic EXE codebase into separate EXE and DLL builds so other apps and shell extensions could use Acrobat's rendering engine.
  • Helped other developers solve tricky Windows programming issues.
  • Hacked into Windows 3.0 font rendering system to intercept text output calls and use PostScript rasterizer for scalable fonts.
  • Printer port monitor and COM interface for Adobe Distiller.
  • Rearchitected PDFWriter to run in user mode with a small kernel mode stub, to support NT 3.51 and 4.0 from the same code base.
• Borland Software, 1991
  • Created WinSight, a Windows message monitor and investigator included in Delphi and C++ Builder, based on my Spy program featured in BYTE Magazine.
• Cooper Software (Microsoft), 1988-1990
  • Led the team that created the "Visual" part of Visual Basic.
  • Created the VBX interface that millions of developers used to build and embed custom controls in Visual Basic apps.
• Gupta Technologies, 1986-1988
  • Designed and developed SQLWindows, the first visual programming tool for Windows.

Other activities

• Stack Overflow, 2013-present
  • 600+ quality answers and 28,000+ reputation.
• Harmonica player and photographer.

More work history and entertaining stories on LinkedIn: http://linkedin.geary.com
Stack Overflow: http://stack.geary.com
GitHub: http://github.geary.com

Contact: mike@geary.com or 408-372-7373