Open to new opportunities

People Operations
that ships software.

I'm a People Ops & People Analytics leader who doesn't wait for engineering. I design, build, and ship the internal tools my teams need — full-stack apps, live dashboards, and automation that turn manual ops into systems that scale.

10+
years driving operations
1 IPO
+ 3 acquisitions navigated
0→1
production tools, end to end
50
states of compliance built
01 — About

Operator by title, builder by instinct.

I lead People Operations and People Analytics at a fast-scaling consumer wellness company, where I'm responsible for the systems that keep a growing, multi-state team running — onboarding and offboarding, payroll, compliance, headcount analytics, and the day-to-day infrastructure of the people function.

What sets my work apart is that I build the tooling myself. When a process is manual, brittle, or invisible, I prototype the fix and ship it — from full-stack web apps with real authentication and databases, to live dashboards that pull from our actual systems, to automation that eliminates repetitive work.

I'm fluent across the stack a modern operator needs: SQL and data analysis, full-stack development (Next.js, React, Postgres), product thinking, and AI-assisted engineering. I care about clean systems, secure handling of sensitive people data, and tools that other people actually want to use.

I've done this across the full company spectrum — from sub-50-person, venture-backed startups to a public company (through a NYSE IPO and $6.2B acquisition) and a hypergrowth brand now inside a global enterprise. So I'm equally at home moving fast on a scrappy startup team and operating with the structure and rigor a large corporation demands.

At a glance

FocusPeople Ops · Analytics · HR Tech
BuildsInternal tools & dashboards
StackNext.js · React · Postgres
DataSQL · BigQuery · viz
Ships withCloud Run · GCS · GitHub
RangeSeed startups → enterprise
EdgeOps fluency + engineering
02 — Selected work

Things I've built.

Internal products I designed and shipped — each solving a real operational problem for a real team. Click any project to try a live, interactive demo (running on sample data; details generalized).

03 — Experience

A decade of scaling operations.

10+ years as the operational backbone of high-growth companies — through a NYSE IPO, multiple billion-dollar acquisitions, and hypergrowth from startup to scale.

Grüns2025 — Present
People Operations · Remote
Celebrity-backed daily-nutrition brand · hypergrowth to $300M+ revenue by year two.
Acquired by Unilever · 2026Hypergrowth
  • Own People Operations & analytics for a fast-scaling, multi-state team through an acquisition by Unilever.
  • Run multi-state payroll, benefits, and leave administration end to end — bi-weekly payroll, enrollment and qualifying-life-event changes, family-forming benefits, and full leave-of-absence management including state PFML/PFL top-ups.
  • Designed and shipped the internal software stack myself — an offsite-planning platform, live people-ops dashboards, an IT asset system, lifecycle automation, and people-function scorecards.
  • Architect and deploy straight to production on Google Cloud (Cloud Run, BigQuery) — no engineering team required — and lead AI-native enablement across the company.
Mosey, Inc.June 2024 — 2025
Operations Manager · Remote (Denver, CO)
Venture-backed multi-state compliance platform · $18M Series A (Canaan, Gusto, SemperVirens).
Acquired by GustoSeries A SaaS50-state compliance
  • Architected and scaled tax-registration workflows across all 50 states (withholding, unemployment, PFML, workers' comp).
  • Managed a vendor-agent network delivering compliant, on-time execution of client payroll-tax requests.
  • Launched a premium "managed account" model, improving ACV, client retention, and time-to-close.
Fathom RadiantJuly 2022 — May 2024
Operations Manager · Boulder, CO
Deep-tech AI hardware — optical compute for brain-scale neural networks · backed by Khosla Ventures, Founders Fund & Jeff Bezos.
Frontier deep-tech0→1 ops
  • Led cross-functional oversight across HR, Finance, IT, and Facilities; introduced repeatable, cross-departmental SOPs.
  • Owned benefits design and rollout — ICHRA, FSAs, and equity distribution — with external partners.
  • Managed corporate compliance, contracts, and IP filings, interfacing with legal for audit readiness.
Datto, Inc.Sept 2017 — Mar 2022
Operations Manager · Norwalk, CT
Cloud / MSP software leader · 1,700+ employees · IPO on the NYSE in 2020.
NYSE IPO · 2020Acquired by Kaseya · $6.2B
  • Directed IT asset lifecycle and compliance tracking through Datto's IPO and $6.2B acquisition, aligning to SOC and SOX protocols.
  • Built scalable internal-operations frameworks and ran cross-team partner meetings to close service gaps.
  • Designed the annual hardware budget and tech-spend program, negotiating vendor pricing and buy-back programs.
  • Owned end-to-end onboarding and offboarding — IT, access management, space, and equipment.
04 — Capabilities

What I bring to a team.

A rare combination: someone who understands the operational problem deeply and can build the technical solution.

👥

People Operations

  • Onboarding & offboarding
  • Multi-state payroll & comp ops
  • Benefits admin — Medical, Dental, STD, Life, 401(k)
  • Leave & family benefits
  • Multi-state compliance
  • HRIS administration (Gusto, Rippling)
📐

Data & Analytics

  • SQL & BigQuery
  • People & operational metrics
  • Dashboards & data viz
  • Reporting & scorecards
  • Data modeling
🛠️

Engineering

  • Next.js, React & TypeScript
  • Google Cloud (Cloud Run, GCS, BigQuery)
  • 3rd-party APIs (Google Maps/Places, Notion)
  • Auth, RBAC & SSO (Identity-Aware Proxy, Clerk)
  • CI/CD, GitHub & AI-assisted development
RipplingGustoADPCartaGuidelineNetSuiteSAPRampBill.comJiraNotionMosey
05 — On GitHub

I build in the open.

Everything you've seen here I designed and shipped myself. Most production work lives in private company repos, but here's the stack I build with.

Languages

TypeScriptJavaScriptPythonSQLHTML / CSS

Frameworks

Next.jsReactNode.jsTailwind

Cloud & deploy

Google Cloud RunCloud StorageBigQueryVercelNetlify

APIs & integrations

Google Maps / PlacesNotion APISlackGustoRampMCP connectors
github.com/michaelrak-spec

Let's build something.

Based in the Denver metro and open to remote roles. If you're looking for an operator who can both run the function and ship the tools that make it scale, I'd love to talk.