Colby Williams
Emerging Tech (Principal Software Engineer) at Microsoft
Huntsville, Alabama, United States
Summary
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Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolColby Williams is a Principal Software Engineer at Microsoft with 11 years of experience building developer-first tools and cloud solutions from mobile SDKs to machine learning samples. Based in Huntsville, AL, he combines hands-on engineering with technical leadership on Emerging Tech teams, shaping developer experiences that integrate Azure, Cosmos DB, and AI services. His open-source contributions include enhancements to the popular Octokit .NET GitHub client and practical ML.NET samples for sentiment and anomaly detection, demonstrating both API design and ML engineering chops. He has a history of founding and scaling product-focused startups and teams—ranging from a mobile feedback app and an e-commerce agency to running an independent record label—bringing entrepreneurial instincts to enterprise problems. Known for translating complex platform capabilities into usable SDKs and documentation, he excels at making developer workflows simpler and more productive. Colby’s blend of product curiosity and deep platform experience means he often focuses on the developer ergonomics that are easy to overlook but drive adoption.
11 years of coding experience
7 years of employment as a software developer
Business Business Administration and Management, Business Business Administration and Management at The University of Alabama
Stackoverflow
1reputation
127reached
0answers
1question
Github Skills (18)
algorithms10
apidoc10
mldotnet10
net10
machine-learning10
dotnet10
asp-net10
api10
sdk10
mlnet10
dotnet-core10
csharp10
anomaly-detection9
octokit-net9
sentiment-analysis9
Programming languages (14)
Github contributions (5)
dotnet/machinelearning-samples
May 2019 - Sep 2019
Samples for ML.NET, an open source and cross-platform machine learning framework for .NET.
Role in this project:
ML Engineer
ML EngineerContributions:14 commits, 6 PRs, 79 pushes in 4 months
Contributions summary:Colby primarily contributed to machine learning sample applications within the .NET ecosystem. Their work involved modifying and expanding existing samples for sentiment analysis and anomaly detection. The user refactored code, updated documentation, and integrated these samples with features like Try .NET, enhancing their usability and demonstrating expertise in ML.NET framework.
machine-learning-platformdotnetml-netmlmachine-learning
octokit/octokit.net
Oct 2020 - Oct 2020
A GitHub API client library for .NET
Role in this project:Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:5 reviews, 1 commit, 5 PRs in 1 day
Contributions summary:Colby primarily contributed to the .NET-based GitHub API client library. Their work involved adding new properties and models, such as `HtmlUrl` for `Team` and `Project` objects, as well as integrating custom property features into the repository search functionality. They also implemented and tested custom properties model and clients, demonstrating experience in expanding the library's capabilities and supporting the API's functionalities for interacting with GitHub. The user also added functionality to search for custom properties.
api-clientapidotnetoctokit-netclient-library
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