Mitchell Sternke is a Principal Software Engineer in Seattle with 11 years of experience building reliable data and tooling systems at Microsoft, where he progressed from Software Engineer to principal roles. He specializes in back-end and database engineering—contributing to open-source projects like the VS Code mssql extension and SQL Tools Service—focused on connection management, query execution, and test automation. Known for rigorous QA and unit-test infrastructure work, he blends developer and tester perspectives to improve reliability in cross-platform developer tools. An avid competitive programmer and hackathon participant, he brings curiosity and a polyglot mindset to complex system design and debugging.
11 years of coding experience
14 years of employment as a software developer
High School, High School at Eden Prairie High School
Bachelor’s Degree Computer Science, Bachelor’s Degree Computer Science at University of Minnesota
Contributions:134 commits, 13 PRs, 11 pushes in 5 months
Contributions summary:Mitchell primarily contributed to the testing infrastructure of the `vscode-mssql` extension. Their work involved adding, modifying, and fixing unit tests for various components, including the sqlOutputContentProvider and the extension itself. Key contributions also include establishing a unit test infrastructure for xunit style reporting and fixing existing test failures, indicating a focus on ensuring the reliability and correctness of the extension's functionality.
SQL Tools API service that provides SQL Server data management capabilities.
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer & Database Engineer
Contributions:63 commits, 14 PRs, 17 pushes in 4 months
Contributions summary:Mitchell's primary focus appears to be on back-end development, particularly related to database interactions and SQL tools services. The commits indicate work on connection management, including establishing, cancelling, and disconnecting database connections. Furthermore, the user is involved in features relating to listing databases and implementing connection context changes, which demonstrates a focus on database administration and integration within the SQL tools ecosystem.
data-serverapidata-managementsql-serversqlserver
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Mitchell Sternke - Principal Software Engineer at Microsoft