I build things, break things, fix things, and occasionally remember to share it. 🦉

I’m Melanie. You might know me as M, Warrick, or nyghtowl depending on the corner of the internet. Over a decade of building ML and AI products and leading engineering teams, currently doing that at Temporal and as co-founder of Fight Health Insurance.

Work

Now: Temporal. Developer relations, plus hosting Vibe Check. I build and demo AI agents that keep working when things fail.

Co-founded Fight Health Insurance with Holden Karau. It’s free, and it uses AI to help people appeal denied healthcare claims. I got there the hard way. I’ve spent way too much time navigating medical systems for people I love. That experience is heartbreaking and it is also very motivating.

Before that: different companies, including Google and Skymind. Engineering, leading teams and developer relations, plus nearly 60 episodes co-hosting the GCP Podcast. At Skymind I helped build Deeplearning4j, an open source neural net platform in Java, and led teams putting AI into production back when that was a lot less routine than it is now.

Consulting

I also advise startup founders on setting up and running their businesses and building their applications. I offer hands-on help with websites, AI models, and homelabs. Find out about working with me.

Outside work

  • Diving. Scuba Divemaster. I find peace 30+ feet underwater watching fish go about their lives.
  • Sci-fi. Reality is fascinating, but imagined futures are chef’s kiss.
  • Gaming and storytelling. D&D campaigns are my jam and I live for chaos.
  • My friends. Making time for the people who matter is the most important thing, full stop.

Fun fact: I studied film and worked in the industry for a bit. There’s an IMDB page, which seems odd given it’s under a handful of credits. Storytelling turns out to transfer well to explaining why your code does what it does (or doesn’t do what it should).

Always learning

How to fit LLM training into limited VRAM. How octopi camouflage. This site is where I keep track of it and link out to wherever I’ve shared things: the wins, the face-palm moments, and everything in between.

LinkedIn has the formal version if you need it. It’s also the easiest place to reach me.