Mike (Codename: Progenitor)

Software

Background

Hi! I live in Chicago with my wife Lydia, and soon our son Benjamin (due date puts his age around negative 1.5 weeks old as of writing this). I grew up in Wayland MA, then studied physics at Caltech before moving to Chicago and turning myself into a software engineer to help the first of several startups I’ve been a part of. Some of those jobs involved solo-building the first version of the product, which led to discovering a variety of fields and challenges. I always do my best to contribute to a product, user experience, team, and company impact I can be proud of.

Outside of work, I make sure to try something new each day. I like stories, strategy games, climbing, singing, and teaching. I’m planning to write a novel, and my best party trick is blindfolded chess - I once won 3 different games simultaneously (opponents with boards took turns speaking their moves to me).

My favorite meals

Pizza: Just looking at pizza makes me happy - I often pause to window shop for it on walks.
Beet Salad: I used to be more of a calories-per-dollar eater, but beet salad is worth it.
Potstickers: When my oldest friends gather in MA during the winter holidays, we make potstickers and play board games. In Massachusetts they’re often called Peking ravioli, because a successful Chinese restaurant in Boston called them that to help Italian clientele figure them out and it stuck.

What I’ve been learning and reading about lately

Becoming a dad! I had one high school physics teacher who had a habit of saying things like “the derivative of 3x^2, as any child of three knows, is 6x” so I just reached out to him for his full list of things any child of three should know and now the Child of Three Project is a go.
Interpretations of quantum mechanics (for novel world-building reasons)
A story called Super Supportive. The author executes manic hilarity, grim struggle, and personal growth with impressive thoughtfulness and attention to detail while exploring a creative world of alien wizards and super-powered humans.