Michael Bell
Software Architect at OpenTable
San Francisco, California, United States
Summary
👤
Senior🎓
Top SchoolMichael Bell is a Software Architect in San Francisco with over a decade of experience designing resilient, scalable Java and web-based systems and leading cross-functional teams through large refactors and platform transitions. He has driven architecture and delivery at OpenTable and prior companies, specializing in API design, service mesh, messaging, ORM persistence, and search/indexing while balancing “just right” engineering choices. His background spans hands-on backend work (including improving an embedded PostgreSQL test component) to product-level architecture like event sourcing, microservice splits, and Vault-based security pilots. Comfortable across Linux and Windows, he blends deep technical breadth with practical operational focus—often steering teams from monoliths to testable, observable microservices. An early sysop and multi-discipline thinker with chemistry training, he brings a pragmatic, systems-level perspective to complex engineering problems.
11 years of coding experience
22 years of employment as a software developer
Chemistry, Chemistry at Harvard UniversityBS, Chemistry, History, BS, Chemistry, History at Tufts University
Stackoverflow
9,370reputation
1.6mreached
197answers
11questions
hibernate
top-5%
oracle
top-5%
nio
top-1%
java
top-1%
Github Skills (25)
unit-testing10
postgresql10
databases10
java10
javas10
nio10
unit-test10
database10
jakartaee9
forloop9
database-design9
hibernate9
oracle-11g9
oracle9
embedded8
Programming languages (14)
Github contributions (5)
opentable/otj-pg-embedded
Dec 2017 - Jul 2022
Java embedded PostgreSQL component for testing
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer / Database Engineer
Back-end Developer / Database EngineerContributions:11 reviews, 125 commits, 58 PRs in 4 years 8 months
Contributions summary:Michael primarily focused on enhancing the embedded PostgreSQL component. Their work included modifying the startup wait time, adding database connection information, and refactoring the code to use Duration. They also implemented null checks and addressed issues related to negative durations. Furthermore, the user exposed database information for integration with other parts of the system.
javapostgresqltestingplatform-javapostgres
opentable/otj-kafka
Feb 2018 - Nov 2022
Kafka integration library
Contributions:6 reviews, 93 commits, 44 PRs in 4 years 9 months
kafkaplatform-javametricsspringlogging
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