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Michael Smeal.open to EM roles

Engineering manager · Remote (US)

I guide engineers and their teams fromgood decisionsto great sites.

I'm Michael, an engineering manager and developer who has been building for the web since 2013. I've led a design team in Buffalo and managed engineers at Clearlink. Now I run Root & Render and write about the ground between leading and building.

Download résumé (PDF)See my experience

Leadership at Clearlink

What I'm proud of

  • 2 + 2

    Engineers hired and promoted, with one departure in two years as manager.

  • +16%

    Delivery rate after reworking sprint planning with project management.

  • 1 → 6

    One shared WordPress theme running six internal sites.

  • −12%

    MySQL query latency, alongside a Webpack pipeline about 15% leaner.

The route so far

Experience

  1. 2019 – present · Root & Render

    Founder

    Independent design-to-code studio for agencies

  2. 2023 – 2025 · Clearlink

    Software Engineering Manager

    Led 9+ engineers and QA, guiding architecture on multi-brand web builds

  3. 2018 – 2023 · Clearlink

    Software Engineer → Senior Software Engineer

    Built the reusable component theme, CI/CD and front-end pipeline behind six brand sites

  4. 2016 – 2018 · Bak USA

    Web Developer

    Owned the e-commerce platforms end to end: hosting, DNS, security and performance

  5. 2013 – 2016 · LocalEdge

    Senior Web Designer & Team Lead

    Led designers and developers, cutting project revision cycles 30%

Field notes · first essays coming soon

Writing

  • Leading engineers

    Guiding decisions without making them for your team

  • Design to code

    Why the handoff is where sites lose their detail

  • Lessons from the work

    What a decade of building for the web has taught me

Looking for a development partner?

Client work happens at Root & Render, my design-to-code studio for agencies.

Visit rootandrender.dev →