Michael Cousins

Detail-oriented full-stack software engineer with over 10 years of experience. Passionate about shipping high-quality products, leading teams to solve complex problems thoughtfully, and improving my craft and the craft of those around me.

Work Experience

Viam

  • Platform for building and managing smart machines
  • 1 year
  • Software Engineer IV — Mar 2023 to Feb 2024
  • Software Engineer V — Feb 2024 to present
  • Led a multi-team, multi-project effort to quickly and safely move Viam’s main web app from a brittle proof-of-concept to a resilient, growth-ready multi-page SvelteKit app with well-defined testing and architectural strategies

  • Completed Viam's switch to Playwright for E2E testing by writing our CI workflows and establishing best-practices through written documentation and PR reviews

  • Worked closely with PMs and designers to establish lightweight milestone, ticket acceptance criteria, and stakeholder review processes to increase project velocity

  • Skilled up software engineers of varying levels of experience on unit testing, end-to-end testing, continuous integration, and architectural best-practices

Opentrons

  • Open-source liquid handling robots for biologists
  • 5½ years
  • Frontend Software Engineer — Aug 2017 to Mar 2018
  • Software Engineer III — Mar 2018 to Mar 2019
  • Software Engineer IV — Mar 2019 to Mar 2023
  • Led the Robot Services team as we designed, built, and shipped a reliability-focused rewrite of the OT-2 and Flex robots' control and workflow execution software, while keeping users' already functioning workflows intact

  • Worked with my teams' embedded designers and product managers to deliver features and resolve our trickiest bugs

  • Architected, developed, and maintained the Opentrons App, the Electron and React desktop app that controls the OT-2 and Flex robots

  • Configured and maintained CI and deployment systems for multiple products across multiple languages, operating systems, and CI providers

Keen Home

  • Smart, connected HVAC products
  • 2¾ years
  • Mechatronics Engineer — Nov 2014 to Jul 2015
  • Senior Product Engineer — Jul 2015 to Jul 2017
  • Rebuilt the Keen Home API's authentication and authorization systems, adding an OAuth frontend and backend for Amazon Alexa integration

  • Designed and implemented hardware and software for assembly-line QC fixtures

  • Created and managed Node.js-based production systems, tools, and tests

Wiley Cousins

  • Contract software & hardware engineering
  • 1¾ years
  • The "Cousins" half — Feb 2013 to Oct 2014
  • Designed electronics and firmware for wearables and other connected products

  • Created and taught a 12-week "Introduction to Circuits" class

Open-Source Projects

JS-DevTools/npm-publish

Maintainer
  • TypeScript
  • GitHub Actions

Deploys packages to npm from CI. Took over as maintainer from author. Used at Viam and by thousands of projects.

tracespace/tracespace

Creator
  • TypeScript
  • React
  • Vite

Printed circuit board viewer and libraries. Renders fabrication (Gerber) files as SVG. Used by various PCB manufacturers.

mcous/vitest-when

Creator
  • TypeScript
  • Vitest
  • Unit testing

Stubbing library for Vitest to make mocking more expressive and less error-prone. Used at Viam and Opentrons for UI testing.

mcous/decoy

Creator
  • Python
  • Pytest
  • Unit testing

Mocking library that enforces best practices to guide architecture and reduce coupling. Used at Opentrons to test core logic.

testing-library/svelte-testing-library

Contributor
  • JavaScript
  • Svelte
  • UI testing

De-facto standard Svelte testing utilities. Fixed bugs, improved CI, updated docs, triaged issues, and prepared for Svelte 5.

Ask Me About

Languages

    TypeScript and JavaScriptPython

Testing

    Test-driven developmentAutomated end-to-end testing

Frontend

    Scalable, testable application architectureComponent-based view libraries

Backend

    HTTP API designEvent-driven architecture

Glue

    Technical leadership and mentorshipProject management

Education

B.Sc. Mechanical Engineering

    Conc. in intelligent mechanical systemsNorthwestern University, class of 2012