Mykhailo (Mike) Severa

Principal Product Engineer • Entrepreneur

michael.svr@gmail.com · linkedin.com/in/msevera · github.com/msevera · msevera.com

Summary

Principal Product Engineer with 15+ years building and shipping web and mobile products, now focused on AI-native development — multi-agent systems, RAG, vector search, and real-time voice, backed by a spec-driven, agentic engineering workflow. Former Co-founder and CTO at a Y Combinator and a16z crypto-backed company.

Skills

AI-Native Workflow
Spec-driven development (OpenSpec), multi-agent orchestration (Cursor, Claude Code, Codex), custom agent skills & slash commands, prompt management & evals (Braintrust), context/guardrail engineering (agent rules, anti-pattern enforcement)
Languages
TypeScript, JavaScript, Python, Solidity
Front-end
React, Next.js, React Native, Redux, Tailwind, CSS
Back-end
Node.js, NestJS, GraphQL, GraphQL Subscriptions, REST, Microservices, better-auth / OAuth
Databases & Messaging
PostgreSQL, TypeORM, MongoDB, Redis, Kafka, RabbitMQ
AI/ML
Agents, Multi-agent systems, RAG, Vector Search, Vercel AI SDK, Braintrust (evals), Turbopuffer, LlamaIndex, mem0, ElevenLabs, STT/TTS, PipeCat, OpenAI, LangChain, LangGraph
Cloud & DevOps
Google Cloud, Firebase, Docker, Kubernetes, Vercel, Travis CI, CI/CD, Sentry, Vitest, Testcontainers, semantic-release

Experience

Principal Product Engineer, AI LeadershipFeb 2026 – Present

  • Architected and led a team of 3 product engineers building an AI-native leadership platform on a NestJS + GraphQL + PostgreSQL/TypeORM backend with a Next.js (App Router) frontend.
  • Designed a multi-agent system of 9 specialized agents (interview, aggregation, follow-up, chat, weekly check-in) on the Vercel AI SDK, with Braintrust for prompt management and evaluation tracing.
  • Built RAG over a Turbopuffer vector store with LlamaIndex ingestion, mem0 long-term memory, and ElevenLabs real-time voice (STT/TTS).
  • Implemented real-time UX with GraphQL subscriptions over Redis, plus better-auth / Google OAuth, anonymous-to-user account migration, encryption at rest, and security hardening (Helmet, GraphQL depth/complexity limits).
  • Established a spec-driven, agentic engineering practice — shipped 120+ well-scoped features (OpenSpec change proposals) with portable agent tooling across Cursor, Claude Code, and Codex, plus codified conventions and anti-pattern enforcement to keep AI-generated code production-grade.
  • Backed it with engineering rigor: Sentry observability across API and web, semantic-release, and a Vitest + Testcontainers test suite.
Stack: Vercel AI SDK, Braintrust, RAG, Turbopuffer, mem0, LlamaIndex, ElevenLabs, OpenSpec, Cursor, Claude Code, Codex, TypeScript, NestJS, Apollo GraphQL, GraphQL Subscriptions, PostgreSQL, TypeORM, Redis, Next.js, React, Tailwind, Docker, Vercel, Sentry.

Independent Ventures2025 – 2026

AI products I designed and built end-to-end as an entrepreneur.

  • Gogue AI

    Designed and built an AI-powered learning app that delivers personalized audio lectures based on content from non-fiction books and online materials, featuring audio lectures generation, AI chat, and a real-time voice assistant.

    Stack: AI Agents, Vector Search, LangChain/LangGraph, OpenAI, STT/TTS, TypeScript, Python, React, React Native, Node.js, MongoDB, Redis, Kubernetes, GCP.
  • Composer AI

    Built a Gmail-integrated AI agent that reads thread context, retrieves relevant information (past emails, sender history, calendar events), and generates tone-aligned replies using LangGraph + OpenAI.

    Stack: AI Agents, LangChain/LangGraph, OpenAI, Browser extensions, TypeScript, Node.js, NestJS, React, MongoDB, GCP.

Co-founder & Product Engineer (CTO), Launcher Labs (YC W21, formerly Newzip)Jan 2021 – 2024

  • Built and launched 7+ products across Web3 and consumer apps, including Launchcaster, Frameboard, and Newzip Livestream; owned CI/CD, Kubernetes deployments, and hiring.
  • Architected a reusable backend framework (Node.js, GraphQL, MongoDB, Redis, RabbitMQ) that let the team ship features daily and pivot quickly through MVP phases.
Stack: TypeScript, React, React Native, Next.js, Node.js, NestJS, Apollo GraphQL, MongoDB, Firebase, Redis, RabbitMQ, Docker, Kubernetes, GCP, Vercel, Solidity, Ethereum L1/L2.

Front-end Tech Lead, MokriyaAug 2018 – 2021

  • Architected and led the build of the kw.com property-search front-end from scratch, hands-on alongside a team of 5 engineers, delivering a performant, scalable UI in React and GraphQL for one of the largest real estate platforms in the US.
Stack: JavaScript, React, Node.js, Apollo GraphQL, Microservices, Google Cloud.

Founder & Product Engineer, Liberbee (independent venture)Aug 2017 – 2018

  • Founded and built a marketplace to buy, sell, and swap books; built it end-to-end — REST API (Node.js, Express, MongoDB, Elasticsearch) and an SSR React/Redux web client.
Stack: JavaScript, React/Redux, Node.js, Express, MongoDB, Redis, Elasticsearch, DigitalOcean.

Full‑stack Developer & Product Researcher, Forbytes2012 – 2017

  • Led front-end architecture for Trademax, one of the Nordics' largest furniture retailers, growing it into a multichannel e-commerce platform with custom back-office tools.
Stack: React, Redux, Vue, Node.js, Webpack, SMACSS, Google Analytics, HotJar.

Education

Lviv Polytechnic National University2006 – 2010

  • Master's degree — Computer Science