# Michael Knepper > Senior Software Engineer at Gretel.ai Location: Chicago, Illinois, United States Profile: https://flows.cv/michaelknepper I am a systems thinker who excels at understanding, explaining, and contributing to complex high-level architectures and their low-level implementation details. I’m particularly interested in platform engineering, developer tooling, and automated security compliance. I pride myself on quickly establishing trust with stakeholders and delivering on the expectations that accompany that trust. ## Work Experience ### Senior Software Engineer @ Gretel.ai Jan 2022 – Present ### Principal Software Crafter @ 8th Light Jan 2014 – Jan 2022 | Greater Chicago Area Platform Engineering - Lead development of a new security-first AWS platform - Remediated over 100 third party security audit findings - Improved CIS Benchmarks security score over thirty percentage points - Obviated 90% of total static IAM user access keys by establishing role-based auth patterns for both local and CI environments - Created, managed resources in, and coordinated cross-account access between thirty AWS accounts - Updated Terraform codebases to help migrate teams' cloud services to new accounts - Developed an internal registry for shared Terraform modules to standardize infrastructure - Set up a shared Datadog instance with platform-level tagging to facilitate service observability Data Engineering - Lead development of a serverless data ingestion pipeline for analyzing and improving a global reinsurer’s loss ratio - Parsed policy and claim data in 10 different file formats and schemas to load into a normalized PostgreSQL database - Developed SQL and Python transformation scripts to enable data team members to explore raw and transformed data with their preferred tools - Developed a Python tool to templatize eleven core PostgreSQL queries for 150 dealers’ source systems to improve dealer onboarding - Lead development and analysis of queries with hundreds of millions of records in SAP systems Application Development - Experience with both legacy monoliths to greenfield microservices, using Ruby (Rails, Sinatra), Scala (Play, Akka), Clojure, Python, PHP (Laravel), TypeScript (React), Java, Docker, Kafka, RabbitMQ, PostgreSQL, and Redis - As lead developer, presented system architecture diagrams, addressed scope, timelines, and budgets, and helped define requirements and future functionality Internal Culture - Authored 11 and edited over 20 coworkers’ posts on the company blog - Mentored 2 coworkers through 8th Light’s software development apprenticeship - Reviewed over 10 applicant code submissions and managed a team of submission reviewers ### Web Application Developer @ Unknown Jan 2013 – Jan 2014 I independently built a tool to help librarians at the Batavia Public Library streamline the processes of registering patrons for their summer reading program, tracking their progress throughout the summer, and reporting statistics at the program's conclusion. I worked in a small distributed team to develop an admin dashboard for Omron Health executives and their corporate clients to observe and analyze user activation, retention, and participation metrics related to corporate wellness programs. I led development of a Ruby on Rails web application for CQA to facilitate conference event creation and guest reservations, membership payments, content distribution, and group email announcements. I continued to maintain this application for 6 years. I contributed to the development of Wireharbor Security, an IT risk management solution. ## Education ### B.A. in Comparative and World Literature University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Jan 2005 – Jan 2009 ### English in Philosophy Trinity College Dublin Jan 2008 – Jan 2008 ### Web Development The Starter League Jan 2013 – Jan 2013 ## Contact & Social - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/michaelrknepper - Website: http://mikeknep.com - GitHub: https://github.com/mikeknep --- Source: https://flows.cv/michaelknepper JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/michaelknepper/resume.json Last updated: 2026-03-22