About Me

I'm Matt DeMichele, a software engineer based in Maui, Hi. I currently work as Software Engineer II at OpenTech Alliance, where I work on access control systems as a part of the Centralized Intelligent Access team. We build the software that controls physical access to self-storage facilities across the country.

My primary tools are Angular, TypeScript, C#, and .NET, though I've worked extensively with React, Node.js, Python, and a range of different technologies. I've shipped production code at companies ranging from seed-stage startups to publicly traded enterprises — and I care deeply about writing software that's maintainable, performant, and actually solves the problem at hand.

My path to software wasn't linear. I started at Moody Bible Institute studying theology, then transferred to Illinois Tech for physics, then spent years in Maui working as a scuba diver and sailor before finding my way into web development. From there, I worked as a WordPress developer in Hawaii, eventually enrolled at Oregon State for a formal CS degree then finally jumped fully into software engineering.

That background gives me an unusual perspective. I'm comfortable in ambiguous, high-stakes environments, good at explaining technical concepts to non-engineers, and genuinely motivated by building things that work in the real world.

Outside of coding, I'm drawn to agriculture, agroforestry, and permaculture — the long game of building something sustainable. I still sail and freedive when I can, and I write occasionally about technology and life on my blog.