EC●DEV
Product Design Engineer + Systems Architect making complex work legible, trustworthy, and humane, across product interfaces, AI-native workflows, and socio-technical infrastructure.
All work by Mec Zilla
(2023 - 2026)
Systems Engineering
Live Builds
sylys
Infrastructure for intellectual labor. A spatial thinking environment that helps people understand, develop, and preserve complex ideas over time by organizing them through relationships, not folders or documents. Built local-first to ensure intellectual sovereignty, where your thoughts remain your own.
Role: Product Design Engineer
Responsibilities:
Architected and built a spatial thinking environment for people whose thinking has outgrown their tools. Designed for researchers, writers, and knowledge workers who need to see how ideas connect, evolve, and cohere while preserving context, sources, and intellectual lineage. Owned full-stack implementation from Rust backend through React spatial canvas, prioritizing coherence over volume and understanding over storage.
Key Features:
- Enabled spatial thinking at scale by building an interactive canvas where users arrange ideas visually to surface patterns, gaps, and tensions that linear tools hide, transforming fragmented notes into coherent understanding
- Achieved instant semantic search across entire knowledge bases by implementing a local-first RAG system with SQLite vector storage and optimized Rust backend, eliminating cloud latency while protecting intellectual sovereignty
- Preserved intellectual rigor by designing research integrity scoring that tracks sources, verifies claims, and detects contradictions, ensuring all AI suggestions maintain provenance and context without silent edits or loss of authorship
- Protected data sovereignty by architecting offline-first persistence with plaintext files, guaranteeing users maintain full ownership of their thinking without cloud dependency or vendor lock-in
TOMS
A comprehensive talent operations platform built to eliminate the coordination chaos small organizations face managing hiring pipelines, onboarding workflows, and payroll preparation. Transforms scattered spreadsheets and email threads into a unified system with role-based access control, automated workflows, and real-time analytics.
Role: Product Design Engineer
Responsibilities:
Architected and built a full-stack SaaS platform that centralizes talent operations for small organizations managing 50+ candidates across multiple hiring pipelines. Owned product strategy, system architecture, and full-stack implementation including RBAC authorization, configurable workflow pipelines, analytics dashboards, and a custom design system optimized for high-density operational data and rapid decision-making.
Key Features:
- Reduced hiring coordination overhead by 70% by building role-aware administrative workflows with RBAC authorization, enabling hiring managers, recruiters, and finance teams to operate independently within their permission scope without blocking each other
- Improved data consistency and reduced API calls by 50% by implementing intelligent server state management using React Query with optimistic updates, background refetching, and stale-while-revalidate caching strategies
- Accelerated decision-making speed by designing a custom component library optimized for high-density operational data, enabling users to scan 100+ candidate records with critical status indicators visible at a glance
- Enabled data-driven hiring decisions by building real-time analytics dashboards with Recharts visualization, surfacing pipeline conversion rates, time-to-hire metrics, and bottleneck identification across all active requisitions
Brand Design & Strategy
Case Studies
Portfolio as Proof
Live Case Study
mec.dev
Built as a production system that converts portfolio traffic into qualified consultations. Integrates payment-gating, automated Zoom provisioning, real-time calendar sync, and a RAG-powered AI terminal that answers recruiter questions from structured portfolio data. Every architectural decision demonstrates the product thinking and technical execution I bring to client work.
Role: Product Design Engineer
Responsibilities:
Architected and built a portfolio that solves real business problems: eliminating repetitive Q&A through AI-powered responses, converting scheduling friction into zero-touch automation, and filtering casual inquiries through payment-gating. Owned full-stack implementation from data modeling and API integrations (Stripe, Zoom, Resend) to motion design systems and RAG pipeline architecture.
Key Features:
- Achieved instant, context-aware recruiter Q&A by architecting a RAG-powered AI terminal that synthesizes structured portfolio data (projects, experience, skills) into prompt context, eliminating repetitive questions and enabling 24/7 portfolio engagement without manual content updates
- Reduced consultation scheduling overhead by 95% by integrating Server-to-Server OAuth for automated Zoom meeting creation, generating unique meeting links per booking with consistent settings and eliminating back-and-forth coordination
- Achieved real-time availability accuracy by implementing iCal feed integration with blocked-time reconciliation, eliminating double bookings and manual calendar management while maintaining scheduling reliability
Work Experience
I began my career in design, working at the intersection of brand, interaction, and storytelling, which shaped how I think about clarity, usability, and human perception. Over time, close collaboration with engineering teams exsposed friction between intent and implementation, pushing me toward product and systems engineering, where I could effectively close the intent → execution gap and take the initiative to build solutions where needs had consistently been overlooked. Today, I work end-to-end, across interfaces, APIs, and backend services, building intelligent, production-grade systems that translate complex technical constraints into clear, trustworthy experiences.
Certifications
Machine Learning / AI Engineering
Codecademy / 2026 - Pending
Front End Development Nanodegree
Udacity / 2024 - Certificate
Awards & Honors
Elite Media - Keep It 100 Pitch Competition
Grant Recipient
Oct 2025
Udacity x OneTen - BIT Scholarship
Nanodegree Scholarship Recipient
July 2024
BitDAO x Gitcoin - Good Hack
1st Place Prize
Feb 2023
Gitcoin GR15 - DEI Round
Grant Recipient
Sept 2022
File Coin Foundation
Explorer Grant Recipient
Aug 2022
Friends With Benefits ($FWB)
Graduated Fellow
April 2022
Unlock Protocol Cohort 4
Grant Recipient
Nov 2021
Affiliation
Club Captain - Community Organizer
Codecademy / Jan 2025 — Present
Education
Bachelor of Business Administration - Marketing Management
Bernard M. Baruch College (CUNY) / Zicklin School of Business / 2004
Product Design Engineer
FREELANCE / Feb 2023 — Present
I design and build AI-native digital products at the intersection of human-centered interface design, full-stack engineering, and systems architecture. My work focuses on translating complex technical systems into intuitive, trustworthy user experiences that hold up under real-world constraints.
I partner with founders and small teams to define product architecture end-to-end, owning interface systems, application structure, and integration logic, while leveraging AI-assisted workflows to accelerate iteration without sacrificing quality, accountability, or long-term resilience.
Key Responsibilities
- Defining end-to-end product and system structures, including interface boundaries, systems architecture, and documentation standards to enable maintainable, AI-assisted development.
- Engineering full-stack application systems across interface, application logic, and integration layers using modern JavaScript-based frameworks, balancing rapid iteration with long-term resilience
- Building AI agent workflows synthesizing multi-structured data domains into a server-side prompt context, resulting in instant, updatable recruiter Q&A without manual content rewrites.
- Designing governance-first agent runtime with proposal-based edits, context budgets, and audit logging, ensuring all AI-driven changes required explicit human approval and were fully reversible.
- Implementing a context-aware RAG systems with document chunking, vector embeddings, and semantic retrieval, enabling AI assistance grounded in the user's own knowledge base.
Executive Director + Advisor
MECX DAO / Aug 2021 — July 2024
Led community development, creator & builder advocacy, technical enablement, and broader ecosystem ecosystem growth initiatives for a global Web3 community of 1,000+ developers and creatives. Designed onboarding infrastructure, technical curricula, and community-led adoption programs that accelerated the use of decentralized tools and governance-enabled platforms.
Applied Systems Advisory Advises and partners with organizations on the design of governance-aware systems, incentive mechanisms, and participation frameworks, bridging technical infrastructure, institutional constraints, and real-world activation. This work spans ecosystem onboarding, capital formation, and cross-sector partnerships, with a focus on translating emerging technologies into durable, inclusive systems.
Key Responsibilities
- Designed and led developer onboarding programs, workshops, and advocacy initiatives supporting decentralized governance, incentive design, and collective coordination across Web3 ecosystems
- Secured over $50K in ecosystem grants from Gitcoin, Mantle Protocol, Filecoin Foundation, and Unlock Protocol through technical narratives, demos, and activation strategies.
Strategic Advisory
- Structured a $250K partnership framework between Superchief Gallery and Coinbase supporting the launch of CANVAS 3.0, a physical Web3-enabled cultural space inside the Oculus at WTC; advised on programming & curriculum design and co-curated a roster of Web3 KOLs to lead educational events
- Advised the Converse / Jordan / Nike communications team on emerging technology, digital communities, and participation models
- Supported Nike Virtual Studios on DEI & O alignment for their dotSWOOSH initiative and launch events
Ask mec.bot!
An Engagement Briefing Assistant trained on my resume, portfolio projects, and a curated knowledge base developed through direct interviews with me.
Availability: Limited
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Location
Brooklyn, New York
Remote (Global)
Stack
Next / React
Node / TypeScript