Michael Chen

Work

My engineering work at Epoch AI / Zerg AI and MOBIVOLT, plus my experience founding and leading AI at UCR.

Shipped

My work at Epoch AI / Zerg AI and MOBIVOLT. Some customer details are private.

  • 2025 to now

    Zerg and ZTC

    Zerg is a spec-driven framework for autonomous coding agents, and ZTC is its terminal client. My work includes parallel tool dispatch so agents stop queueing behind each other, background sub-agents for work that outlives a single turn, worktree-isolated batch execution so concurrent writers do not collide, a sandboxed multi-agent workflow runtime, MCP and provider routing, and the live web interface. People can watch a run as it happens.

    Epoch AI / Zerg AI · ZTC: TypeScript on Node, Rust native packages, React browser mirror · Zerg: Python core, Vue web IDE

  • 2025 to now

    ZergChat

    A chat product built on the agent platform. An agent joins the channel and responds to messages.

    Epoch AI / Zerg AI

  • 2025 to now

    Zergboard

    A board for managing work in cards, built on the same agent platform.

    Epoch AI / Zerg AI

  • 2025 to now

    Forward-deployed engineering

    I work with two customers whose names are private. For an organization-management and resource-planning platform, I built continual-validation harnesses that score agent output against deterministic checks of state, tools, artifacts, browser behavior and visual output. These checks catch regressions before changes are accepted. The other is an AI procurement intake and approval portal with grounded vendor research, approvals that stay owned by a human, and RBAC with separation-of-duties controls.

    Epoch AI / Zerg AI · customer names withheld, no public artifact

  • 2023 to 2025

    MOBIVOLT

    For this $5M+ DOD-funded fuel-cell program, I built the desktop apps that run the automated test stands, in C# on .NET with Avalonia. I wrote a Python and PyQt hardware-in-the-loop simulator with a serial firmware bridge, injecting sensor values every 100ms and polling at 200ms against plant models. Firmware could then be exercised without a rig. I ported PIC32MZ firmware onto Harmony v3 across 50+ application and driver modules with 2,500+ lines of C tests, and kept 5 automated test stands processing 100+ concurrent data streams with zero downtime across 18 months. I also handled migrations and did circuit work in KiCad and ngspice.

    C#, .NET, Avalonia, Python, PyQt, C, PIC32MZ, Harmony v3, KiCad, ngspice · defense program, no public artifact

Leadership

  • 2023 to 2025

    AI at UCR

    I founded and led UC Riverside's first official AI organization. It reached 50+ members, 10+ technical workshops, and 45% growth in attendance. I booked rooms and wrote the curriculum.

    founder and president

Elsewhere on the site

Kestrel, PHiLIP and other ML work, now in ML & Research

My audiobook setup

Apps for friends

Personal tools

Contributions to friends' projects