Michael Ison

About Michael Ison

I\'m a principal software engineer and architect who\'s spent nearly three decades building systems and teams that scale. Currently at SmartSearch, I architected our enterprise API platform from the ground up—it now serves major clients and enables millions in integration value.My work spans software architecture, API design, and engineering leadership. I\'ve transformed legacy monoliths into modern microservices, built platform engineering departments from scratch, and scaled engineering organizations from 10 to nearly 100 people. At Patriot Software, I led our technical transformation while cutting cloud costs and achieving 99.9% uptime.What drives me is creating technology that solves real business problems—APIs that thousands rely on, AI-powered workflows that eliminate manual work, and platforms that let companies move faster.Specialties: Software architecture, API design, platform engineering, microservices, cloud infrastructure, team leadership

Experience

1. Principal Software Engineer

   Smartsearch

   Oct 2022 — Present

   Architecting SmartSearch\'s enterprise integration platform and driving technical innovation across the company.Built our enterprise platform API from the ground up using.NET and OData, which now serves multiple high-profile clients and enables millions in integration value. Developed customer-facing websites, background processes that handle millions of records, and our Zapier integration that extends our platform reach.Created seamless integrations with AI systems (AWS Bedrock, ChatGPT, Google Gemini), background check platforms, and HR systems that enable fully automated recruitment workflows for our clients. Implemented an event-driven webhooks architecture with real-time notifications that significantly reduced client integration time and eliminated manual data synchronization.Serve as the technical advisor across the company on software architecture, API design, and engineering best practices, helping shape our technical direction and standards.

Education

• University of the Philippines

  BS, Computer Science

  1991 — 1995

Skills

• Wcf
• Windows Communication Foundation (Wcf)
• Ajax
• Asp.net
• Service-Oriented Architecture (Soa)
• Asp.net Mvc
• Api Management
• Design Patterns
• Winforms
• Soa
• Uml
• Windows Presentation Foundation (Wpf)
• .net Framework
• C#
• .net
• Xml
• Wpf
• T-Sql
• Soap
• Jquery