Michael Dai

Senior Software Engineer | Backend & Distributed Systems

Experience

Machine Learning Engineer Pinterest
  • Developing cutting-edge GenAI pipelines for visual discovery and content recommendation, utilizing latent diffusion models to generate context-aware backgrounds for Product Pins.
  • Reduced inference cost by 83% (saving ~$2M annually) via FP8/FP16 mixed-precision quantization for the online serving pipeline.
  • Implemented dynamic LoRA refitting within TensorRT engines, enabling multi-style image generation for millions of users without model reloading.
  • Trained GAN-based enhancement models to achieve sub-pixel precision in image retrieval, significantly improving recommendation relevance.
Principal Engineer & Co-Founder — Playit.gg
  • Architecting a decentralized mesh VPN utilizing a custom UDP-based protocol, designed for high-throughput, low-latency networking.
  • Solving complex distributed system challenges including NAT hole-punching and peer discovery without central relay servers.
Software Engineer II (Merchant Platform) — DoorDash
  • Developed backend services for the "Merchant Portal," handling menu synchronization and order history for 500k+ restaurants.
  • Optimized database schemas (PostgreSQL) to handle millions of concurrent order line-items during peak dinner rushes.
  • Implemented a robust webhook delivery system in Go to notify third-party POS systems of new orders with 99.9% reliability.
Backend Engineer Intern — Lyft
  • Contributed to the Ride Experience team, optimizing geospatial queries for driver-rider matching algorithms.
  • Implemented robust API rate limiting and circuit breaking patterns to improve service reliability during peak hours.
Software Engineer Intern — eBay
  • Assisted in the modernization of the seller dashboard, implementing new data visualization components for sales tracking.
  • Optimized database queries for the inventory management system, reducing load times for power sellers by 25%.

Technical Projects & Open Source

AnyFQ (VPN Infrastructure)
  • Designed and delivered a custom VPN-as-a-Service infrastructure for a private client, prioritizing maximum uptime.
  • Engineered a custom router firmware based on OpenWRT to handle encrypted tunnel management on low-power hardware.
Open Source Contributions
  • govm / go-blueprint: Active contributor to Go ecosystem tools. Focused on CLI architecture and performance.
  • dprint: Contributed to the Rust-based code formatter, optimizing AST parsing logic for speed.
  • gollm: Contributed to Go-based LLM pipelines, useful for structured data extraction from unstructured inputs.

Skills

Languages

Go Python Rust Java/Kotlin SQL

Backend Systems

Microservices gRPC RESTful APIs Event-Driven System Design

Data & Storage

PostgreSQL Kafka Redis Elasticsearch Data Modeling

Infrastructure

AWS Kubernetes Docker Terraform CI/CD

Education

University of Waterloo — Bachelor of Computer Science, Honours Co-op
  • Specialization in Distributed Systems.