Michael Gutensohn

San Francisco, CA | michael@gutensohn.me | github | linkedin | thatsit.dev

Summary

Engineering leader and founder with 8+ years building 0-to-1 products at Apple, NASA, and startups. Expert in AI/ML systems, spatial computing, and scaling cross-functional teams from prototype to production.

Work Experience

Volumetrics San Francisco, CA

Founder, CEO & Lead Engineer Aug 2023 – Present

• Raised $1.1M from Abstract Ventures and Alt Capital; hired and led cross-functional team of engineers and designers
• Partnered with Meta to launch first Progressive Web App implementation on Horizon OS
• Led 3 product pivots through rapid validation cycles, shipping web-based mixed reality applications and developer tools for Apple Vision Pro and Meta platforms
• Architected a suite of 0 to 1 products, doing everything from customer discovery, defining the MVP, to creating and executing engineering road maps

Apple Sunnyvale, CA

Senior Software Engineer Jan 2022 – Jul 2023

• Technical lead for 4-person team building Character Intelligence Framework, a Swift toolkit for AI-driven agents on VisionOS
• Inventor on 4 patents covering immersive storytelling, dynamic scene rendering, and developer tooling
• Demoed flagship experiences to executive leadership
• Delivered performance-optimized AI experiences through cross-functional partnership with product, hardware, and UI teams

Software Engineer Jun 2019 – Jan 2022

• Partnered with Disney and Industrial Light & Magic to ship first-party immersive experiences for Vision Pro
• Built internal tooling for showcasing AI-powered interactive experiences

NASA Pasadena, CA & Merritt Island, FL

Software Engineer Jun 2017 – Aug 2018

• Developed orbit determination toolkit for deep space missions
• Created operator training simulations for Deep Space Network’s human-computer interaction research

Education

University Of California Berkeley - School of Information Berkeley, CA

Masters of Information Management & Systems

Rollins College Winter Park, FL

Bachelors in Computer Sciences

Projects, Patents, & Publications

Patents

• Dynamic scene composition and execution (US-12394146-B1, US-12169902-B2)
• Spatial setting transitions (US-12322048-B2)
• Interactive debugging systems (US-12182327-B2, US-11868526-B2)
• Dynamic portals (US-20250124670-A1)

Bento - a mobile PC designed for XR glasses

• Designed a mini computer from the ground up that fits snugly underneath an Apple Magic Keyboard
• Featured on HackADay, hackster.io, PC Gamer, Yanko Design, and Tom’s Hardware

Graduate Thesis: Malloci - an immersive memory training platform

• Led the development of a platform for generating immersive museum spaces to teach the mind palace technique
• Winner of the James R. Chen award

Skills

Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Generative AI (LLMs, Multimodal, Vision), NLP, Conversational AI, Computer Vision, Frameworks & APIs, Software Architecture & Design, iOS & Mobile Development, Product Strategy & Roadmaps, Rapid Prototyping, Cross-Functional Collaboration (Product, Design, Research, Data Science), Performance Optimization, Open Source Contribution, Technical Leadership & Mentorship, Communication & Stakeholder Alignment