Michael Shambaugh

Technology Leadership & Systems Engineering

Leadership

Nucleus Medical Media

Chief Technology Officer

Leading technology strategy and infrastructure for medical animation and visualization platform. Responsible for security architecture, performance optimization, and technical operations across production systems.

TDS Ventures / ClientSmart

Technical Co-Founder & CTO

Building and scaling a mystery shopping SaaS platform. Full-stack ownership from database architecture to API design, with emphasis on reliability and maintainable code.

Technical Approach

  • Server-side rendering and progressive enhancement over JavaScript-heavy frontends
  • Command-line automation and reproducible build processes
  • Database performance analysis and query optimization
  • Security-first architecture with defense in depth

# Current workflow preferences

$ ripgrep + fzf + BBEdit

$ ssh + rsync + s3cmd

$ LAMP + AlmaLinux + MariaDB

# Automation over repetition

Current Focus

Building resilient backup systems with automated S3 integration, developing comprehensive API testing frameworks, and optimizing database performance across multiple production applications.

Recent work includes Twilio call management integration, automated release documentation generation, and remote development workflow tooling that bridges SSH-accessible servers with local editing environments.

Technology Stack

Backend

  • PHP
  • PDO
  • REST API design
  • htmx integration

Databases

  • MySQL / MariaDB
  • Noramlization
  • Query optimization
  • Schema design

Infrastructure

  • AlmaLinux servers
  • S3 storage
  • Cloudflare
  • SSH automation

DevOps

  • Bash scripting
  • Backup automation
  • Deployment pipelines
  • Performance monitoring

Integration

  • Twilio APIs
  • Payment gateways
  • S3-compatible storage
  • Third-party webhooks

Development

  • BBEdit / command line
  • ripgrep, fzf, bat
  • macOS + Linux

Philosophy

Simple is fast. Simple is maintainable. Simple is secure. Simple is best.

Technology should solve real problems elegantly. The best solutions often come from understanding constraints deeply rather than reaching for the newest framework.

Strong fundamentals—clean code, thoughtful architecture, and comprehensive testing—matter more than trendy tools. Build systems that your future self will thank you for.

Connect

Open to discussing technical architecture, database optimization, API design patterns, and pragmatic approaches to scaling server-side applications.

📧 Email 🔗 LinkedIn