My name is Michael Brook.
I'm an Entrepreneur, Developer, and Designer.

About Me

My name is Michael Brook, and I am a veteran full-stack developer and designer with a particular focus on web technologies, based in Des Moines, Iowa. I have an extremely diverse skill set with over 20 years of experience, working fluently and comfortably across every aspect of the technology stack, including frontend, backend, databases, and server infrastructure. I love designing and building products all the way from conception, through minimum viable product, to product maturity. I get a thrill from being able to build amazing things from nothing.

For almost as long as I could remember, I've loved business. When I was 16, I taught myself how to build websites. From then on, I developed a love for building businesses using technology, and the rest was history. Now in my mid-thirties, I've had the privilege of working across a wide variety of business practices and industries, and have taken on both technology and leadership roles, often as a leader-doer. But my passion has always been in building things for as long as I could remember.

I am very much a self-starter. Not so much for the desire to make money, but because I truly love my craft. I view product design and development as not just a science but an art. Creating a product is an opportunity to build something that improves someone's life every day. It's a labor of passion because I love helping people. Oftentimes, this empathetic relationship with the user also produces better results because building products that work well requires understanding and empathizing with the struggles of others.

Over the years, I've worked on some very notable companies and projects. Most recently, I was the co-founder and leader of product/engineering at Pitchly, a local Des Moines startup that helped customers in financial services, law firms, and other regulated industries turn their existing structured data into repeatable designed content at scale, primarily for generating pitchbooks and proposals. Pitchly worked with many leaders in the industry, including Barclays, Raymond James, BDO, Lazard, Moelis, EF Hutton, Mizuho, Cooley, and Wachtell.

Prior to Pitchly, I've also worked in the field of big data, helping build products that used predictive analysis to help banks and mortgage brokers identify new potential customers. In the recent age of AI, I've also remained at the forefront of AI developments, with experience working in the field of computer vision, vector databases, agentic workflows, unstructured to structured data extraction, end-to-end automated integrations, and more. I've been lucky to work on many new and innovative AI projects that have pushed the limits of what's possible.

I am also no stranger to building consumer software, having built products that have scaled to millions of users. One such service was a music service called BluePlaylist that I had developed during my time in college. Pre-dating Spotify, the service was an all-you-can-eat on-demand music streaming service, very similar to what Spotify is today. While the business did not go on, it was at one point considered one of the top 5 music services globally in its time. Many of the concepts I developed, including playlist sharing, remote playback, personalized recommendations, etc. became industry standard in future music services, and my developments helped shape the future of online music streaming for years to come.

If you are looking for someone who can help take your project from zero to a hundred quickly with quality results, for less than you would spend on an entire team of engineers, AI projects included, shoot me a message. I don't bite... much!

Technical Skills

Professionally, I do almost everything web-related.

I am very comfortable in all aspects of web technologies, all the way from frontend to backend, databases, infrastructure, and everything in between. I have 20 years of experience taking ideas from all different stages through to completion and delivery. I have experience in all the latest tech, including AI models and tooling.

I've worked with all the following technologies:

In my spare time, I enjoy ice skating, drone flying, video editing, photography, and spending time with my 19-month-old son.

Download my full résumé