Michael Gift

I own the web and growth stack across six locations — keeping uptime at 99.9% while making sure the Google Ads spend actually turns a profit. Along the way I pushed organic search from buried to the middle of page one, which matters more than any dashboard vanity metric.

My first real seat at the table: building and maintaining web applications for a handful of different clients, split mostly between full-stack development and cleaning up rough user experience. It's where I got comfortable moving across a whole stack instead of staying in one layer of it.

I led development on Feastify's web app end to end — requirements through deployment — while mentoring the newer engineers on the team and keeping code review an actual conversation instead of a rubber stamp.

A year spent heads-down on a stealth startup's core product: backend architecture, database performance, and the unglamorous work of making sure new features integrated cleanly instead of getting bolted on. Can't say much more than that — it's still stealth.

A short, intense stretch leading Meridian's web app through its full build cycle — requirements to deployment — with the same emphasis on mentoring and real code review that's followed me through every lead role since.

My first lead role, and the one that set the tone for everything after: building Jowi AR's core product across augmented reality, backend systems, and architecture — and learning how to get genuinely different disciplines pulling in the same direction.