Curriculum Vitae
Michael Legemah
Principal AI Engineer
New York, NY · michaellegemah@gmail.com · 516-273-1611
13+ yrs shippingAWSAstraZenecaMINI · OMNY · US Space ForceDoD Secret Clearance
Experience
Software Development Engineer IV · Contract
10/25 — present
Amazon Web Services · New York, NY
- Architect and deliver production-grade AI platforms and applications using Python, TypeScript, React, AWS Bedrock, SageMaker, Lambda, AppSync, DynamoDB, and OpenSearch for enterprise workflows and intelligent customer experiences.
- Designed agentic AI architectures that combine deterministic business workflows with LLM-powered agents through confidence scoring, validation pipelines, automated fallback mechanisms, guardrails, and human-in-the-loop controls to improve reliability in production environments.
- Built Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) services integrating enterprise knowledge repositories, vector search, REST APIs, and LLM-powered retrieval pipelines to support intelligent document synthesis and decision-support workflows.
- Developed AI evaluation and validation frameworks using LLM-as-a-Judge, regression testing, confidence scoring, automated validation, and human feedback loops to systematically evaluate model behavior and improve production reliability.
- Designed scalable APIs, event-driven microservices, and distributed cloud architectures integrating AI agents with enterprise applications and AWS services.
- Optimized LLM applications through prompt engineering, retrieval tuning, embedding strategies, vector search, caching, and model selection, balancing latency, throughput, scalability, and operational cost.
- Implemented CI/CD, observability, monitoring, authentication, production debugging, and incident-response practices to improve operational reliability and deployment confidence for cloud-native AI applications.
- Partnered with software engineers, data scientists, applied science stakeholders, solution architects, product managers, and enterprise customers to translate ambiguous requirements into scalable AI capabilities and production-ready systems.
- Drove architecture decisions across AI application and platform components while balancing product requirements, security, maintainability, reliability, governance, and long-term scalability.
- Leverage AI-native engineering workflows using Claude Code, Amazon Q, and agent-assisted development across prototyping, implementation, testing, debugging, and documentation while maintaining software engineering quality standards.
Staff Software Engineer · Contract
1/25 — 10/25
About Objects · Gaithersburg, MD (Remote)
- Architected and deployed production RAG pipelines and LangGraph-based multi-agent systems that automated complex enterprise document workflows through durable AI orchestration and scalable cloud services.
- Established AI engineering practices spanning prompt engineering, evaluation datasets, automated validation, guardrails, observability, and evaluation-driven development to improve reliability of customer-facing AI capabilities.
- Built scalable Python microservices, FastAPI services, distributed APIs, and AI inference services emphasizing performance, security, observability, and maintainable architecture.
- Designed AI-powered capabilities from initial concept through production implementation, establishing reusable patterns for agent orchestration, retrieval, evaluation, validation, and deployment.
- Integrated AI capabilities into enterprise applications while maintaining maintainability, reliability, security, and production operational requirements.
- Led architecture and technical design across frontend, backend, cloud, and AI components, establishing reusable engineering patterns across product teams.
- Mentored engineers on AI architecture, testing strategies, evaluation-driven development, deployment automation, and software design.
- Led architecture reviews, code reviews, and engineering discussions while promoting scalable software architecture and high engineering standards.
Lead Front-End Engineer · Contract
4/24 — 1/25
Apex Systems · Pittsburgh, PA (Remote)
- Led development of enterprise-scale React and TypeScript applications for the U.S. Army's AIDE platform used by Army officers for mission and operational workflows.
- Modernized distributed service communication by transitioning legacy REST integrations to GraphQL and gRPC, improving interoperability, type safety, maintainability, and frontend data access.
- Delivered end-to-end capabilities using React, TypeScript, Node.js, and Python while influencing architecture, engineering standards, API governance, and long-term platform evolution.
- Served as a technical bridge across frontend, backend, platform, and product engineering teams, aligning API and system-design decisions across squads.
- Established reusable engineering patterns and standards to improve maintainability and consistency across distributed development teams.
- Participated in architecture discussions, code reviews, technical design, and cross-functional delivery for mission-critical government software
Software Engineer IV
4/22 — 4/24
Zivaro · Denver, CO (Remote)
- Built mission-focused React and TypeScript dashboards for U.S. Space Force and Air Force officers to analyze constellation and satellite data across COMMAND and Hyperion applications.
- Architected distributed backend services using Python, FastAPI, Docker, Kubernetes, RabbitMQ, and cloud infrastructure supporting mission-critical government applications.
- Designed event-driven microservice patterns that improved service isolation, deployment independence, fault tolerance, and scalability.
- Integrated backend services using Python and Lua with RabbitMQ, Keycloak, Docker, Kubernetes, and Azure Cloud for secure service-to-service communication.
- Tested and validated mission applications on-base within SIPRNet air-gapped environments, gaining hands-on experience operating software within constrained security, networking, and deployment environments.
- Established reusable frontend standards, shared component patterns, and engineering practices across defense-focused engineering teams.
- Collaborated with government stakeholders, engineers, and cross-functional teams to translate mission requirements into scalable software while balancing usability, reliability, security, and operational constraints.
Senior Front-End Engineer
10/20 — 10/21
Reflexions Data · New York, NY
- Led a team of six engineers delivering high-availability transaction platforms using React, TypeScript, GraphQL, Node.js, and CircleCI for MBTA, OMNY, and BART.
- Drove technical direction, architecture decisions, mentoring, and end-to-end ownership across multiple concurrent product initiatives.
- Established engineering practices around performance, reliability, testing, scalability, and maintainable distributed-system design.
- Influenced engineering strategy through reusable architecture patterns and technical standards while improving developer productivity and long-term maintainability.
- Contributed to an 80% revenue increase through technical leadership and end-to-end product ownership.
Senior Front-End Engineer · Contract
2/19 — 10/20
Mondo · New York, NY
- Designed and implemented a Storybook-driven design system and component library using React, TypeScript, and Vue, enabling consistent user experiences and accelerating frontend development across a high-traffic healthcare platform.
- Built reusable design-system patterns that improved consistency and maintainability across product teams.
- Modernized legacy frontend systems into modular, cloud-native AWS services using EC2, CloudFront, RDS, and Route53.
- Improved platform reliability and reduced operational downtime through modernization of legacy architecture and deployment patterns.
Front-End & Web Engineering Roles
1/13 — 11/18
Various Companies · New York, NY
- Delivered full-stack e-commerce platforms using React, Node.js, MySQL, and secure payment integrations, contributing to more than $3M in online revenue across high-traffic consumer properties.
- Built and optimized customer-facing web applications with a focus on performance, scalability, conversion, responsive design, and user experience.
- Revamped AKC.org using modern UX, responsive design, and performance optimization practices, improving customer engagement and conversion.
- Developed full-stack applications spanning frontend interfaces, backend services, databases, APIs, and third-party integrations.