MNEILSWORLD.COM · HANGING Nº 001 · HTML & CSS ON A CANVAS
MICHAEL NEIL
Software engineer for twenty years. Currently an SVP in Security Engineering at Citi, building the guardrails for agentic AI.
About the maker
I'm Michael. I've been building software for twenty years across many different industries, which is a polite way of saying I have opinions about everything and scars from most of it.
These days I'm an SVP in Security Engineering at Citi, working on agentic security — the discipline of keeping AI systems that act on our behalf from acting badly. Before that: full-stack web applications, where Node.js, Python and Go are daily drivers; then infrastructure and DevOps on AWS, where automation became both a job and a personality trait.
I care about building things that run themselves, but what I actually enjoy is watching teams level up while they do it. My goal is the moment someone stops asking "how?" and starts teaching their teammates instead.
The world so far
Two decades, five terrains. No résumé-style bullets. Just elevation.
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The Flash Plains
Interactive landscapes in ActionScript on this very domain. A world you could walk through and the reason "the world" is still what this site is about.
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The Full-Stack Ranges
Web applications across many industries. Node.js and Python grew into daily drivers; Go arrived later, on purpose.
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The Infrastructure Peaks
DevOps and AWS at scale. The work shifted from writing features to writing the systems that carry them: pipelines, automation, infrastructure that runs itself.
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The Security Highlands
Infrastructure security in the enterprise. Now as SVP, Security Engineering at Citi.
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The Frontier: Agentic Security
When software starts acting on its own, somebody has to teach it restraint. That's where I spend the days.
Craft
What I reach for, and why it sticks.
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Daily drivers
Node.js · Python · Go
The trio that survives every architecture review, and whatever an agent is feeling on a given day. -
Infrastructure
AWS at scale. Automation first: pipelines and self-managing infrastructure so humans can be boringly reliable about the important stuff.
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Security
Agentic AI security, infrastructure security, defense as automation. Currently at Citi building guardrails for systems that act on their own.
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People
The best part of the job is watching teams succeed, learn and grow. Art-plus-communications training means I also care how things look, not just that they work.
The studio
A double major in art and communication left a mark. Three styles I keep returning to — each one maps onto how I build software.
Say hello
The fastest way to reach me is LinkedIn. If you're building with agents and want another set of eyes on your blast radius, that's the inbox for it.
No JavaScript runs on this site. No trackers. Just HTML, CSS, and one very large sun.