principal product manager · director of product

Most of the job is knowing where to push.

15+ years in product, the last eleven at Zillow and Axon. I work in the tangled operational middle: many actors, unclear ownership, no obvious next step. Deciding where to push is the whole job, and lately the useful part has been how cheap it has become to rule things out. Most of that work is not mine to publish. So now it is just me and AI tooling, pointed at my own tangled middle, with a few projects in here built purely for the fun of it.

See the workExperience
lines shipped with ai130,282
docs written with ai331
tokens processed15.8B

Full history of 5 repositories I own, not a career total. Last counted 11 Sept 2026.

What I am building now

all projects →

Live build logs, updated as the work moves. Grounded in real git history, including the wrong turns.

in progress2026

Spooky Hollow

A Roblox ghost hunt built for Hannah, turning the addition practice she needs into the kind of obby she already chooses to play.

robloxluaumath learningfather-daughter
in progress2026

Stadium Escape

A Roblox chase game built with my 11-year-old son, a ballpark homage where the design canon is a decision log.

robloxluauai toolingfather-son
in progress2026

PersonalOS

A second brain built so an agent reads my decisions before it acts. The platform Compass and the Budget Engine are built on.

obsidianpythonsqliteautomation
in progress2026

Compass

A system for the 2,164 people I have met, currently pointed at a job search because that is where I am. 25 ranked targets, with the 17 I have no warm path into flagged in red.

pythonsqlitevanilla jsnetwork
in progress2026

Budget Engine

A household finance engine where every number traces to a source row: stdlib Python, 181 tests, a Friday email.

pythonsqlitelaunchdemail
in progress2026

projectwong.com

This site, treated as a build log itself: a Next.js portfolio with a mirrored design system, gated household dashboards, and its own decision records.

next.jsdesign systemverceldashboards

Latest activity

all writing →

Every check-in and every project, most recently touched first.

Spooky HollowSpooky Hollow: the math game Hannah actually asked to playHannah needed more addition practice and already loved Roblox obbys, so I built the worksheet into a ghost hunt. One long day produced eight levels, 72 ghosts, 17,600 math checks, and a better lesson in what AI still cannot test by itself.10 SeptprojectSpooky HollowA Roblox ghost hunt built for Hannah, turning the addition practice she needs into the kind of obby she already chooses to play.10 SeptStadium EscapeStadium Escape, three weeks laterThe catch-up post: one park became eight, the AI got eyes, a secret sandlot got a very large dog, and the game went live. Also what three weeks of building with AI taught me about taste, judgment, and why PMs and engineers still matter.19 AugCompassA network engine that happens to be job huntingCompass is a system for the 2,164 people I have met over twenty years. It is pointed at a job search right now because that is where I am, and the search is the forcing function rather than the point.19 AugCompassThe half of Compass I did not need to buildCompass runs my job search against a target list I built by hand. Two or three working hours went into building the other half, the part that would generate that list for me, and the useful result was killing it.19 AugprojectStadium EscapeA Roblox chase game built with my 11-year-old son, a ballpark homage where the design canon is a decision log.19 AugprojectCompassA system for the 2,164 people I have met, currently pointed at a job search because that is where I am. 25 ranked targets, with the 17 I have no warm path into flagged in red.19 AugStadium EscapeStadium Escape: building a ballpark with my sonMy son has been asking what I do at work since he could talk, and the answer I gave him was always true and useless. So we built a Roblox chase game set in an homage to a very recognizable Phoenix ballpark. The premise came from two kids in the back seat on the way to Ace Hardware.10 Aug
show all 18 →
Illustrated portrait of Michael Wong and his family, at a table of sewing supplies, a baseball, and a notebook of product sketches
who I am

The pattern repeats across every job I have had. Someone hands me a domain where the work is messy and operational, a lot of people are involved, and nobody can say what should happen next. I learn the operation until I can argue with the people who run it, then I build the thing that makes the next step obvious.

Eleven of those years were at Zillow and Axon, and almost none of that work is mine to show. This site is the answer to that problem. I consult, and I build my own products end to end with AI tooling, and every project here ships with its real build log, wrong turns included.

full history →