Tucson, Arizona

don-E Merson

I am an AI-enhanced programmer

Three decades of hard-won judgment, now running at AI speed.
Thirty years of craft, a whole new engine.

0years building software
0colleges use my idea
0certifications
0books published
don-E Merson, software architect

The multiplier

An AI-Enhanced Programmer

Most careers add skills one at a time. AI multiplies all of them at once.

I've spent more than thirty years building software the traditional way — from Intuit's tax products in the nineties, through a decade of healthcare systems, to enterprise platforms, GIS integrations, and BI pipelines today. I learned what good architecture feels like, where projects really fail, and how to translate messy human requirements into systems that ship.

Now I pair that judgment with AI tooling at every stage: design, code, test, refactor, document. The result isn't a junior developer with a chatbot — it's a senior architect moving at a speed that wasn't possible five years ago.

I was building machine-learning eligibility models in Python and R before "AI" was a headline. Today I treat large language models the way I once treated compilers: a force multiplier you master, not a magic trick you fear.

don-e@digitalArizona ~

Proof, not promises

Signature Work

Scholarship Universe

University of Arizona → CampusLogic / Ellucian

Designed and led the award-winning scholarship-matching platform with a smart profile engine and ML-powered matching. It worked so well the university licensed it commercially — today it runs at 200+ colleges and universities. Campus Technology Innovators Award, 2012.

  • ASP.NET
  • SQL Server
  • Machine learning
  • Product architecture

Vegetation GIS System

University of Arizona × U.S. Forest Service

Architected an online GIS platform syncing rangeland-monitoring data across desktop and mobile — with a custom API for JSON/XML processing, ESRI JS mapping, recursive security, and a MAUI/Xamarin mobile app used in the field.

  • ASP.NET
  • .NET MAUI
  • ESRI JS
  • SQLite

AI Before It Was Cool

Machine learning, 2014-era

Built an AI-driven scholarship eligibility model in Python and R analyzing student academic and financial data — plus a Selenium data-mining pipeline that turned unstructured web data into structured, searchable knowledge.

  • Python
  • R
  • ML modeling
  • Data mining

The road through the desert

The Journey

1984 — 1991

Working Musician & Teacher · Washington, D.C. area

Played pop, rock, jazz, and country; taught music at Montgomery College and area music schools — and was already folding computer training into the lessons. The creative roots run deep.

1992 — 1998

Technical Lead, Trainer & Project Manager · Intuit

From the help desk to project manager for MacInTax and TurboTax Online — wrote the training manuals, taught the classes, analyzed support calls to steer development, and built the support team's intranet.

1998 — 2009

Developer · IKON Office Solutions, then Sun Healthcare Group

A decade building intranet platforms for a national healthcare company — the corporate portal, project-management software, and a nursing-home risk-management system the U.S. Attorney General called "one of the best he had ever seen."

2009 — 2014

Senior Web Developer Principal · University of Arizona

Built Scholarship Universe from specification to production — Campus Technology Innovators Award, 2012. Trained and mentored a generation of developers and student programmers, with a 2013–14 private-sector stint shipping WPF and MVC solutions at Opus Inspection and Monument Systems.

2014 — 2020

Principal Systems Analyst · University of Arizona

Led Scholarship Universe to commercial licensing by CampusLogic (now Ellucian) — used by 200+ colleges nationwide. Built ML matching models and data-mining pipelines; served as Data Science Ambassador supporting faculty research in R and Python.

2019 — Present

Web App Developer IV · Vegetation GIS System

Architecting the online VGS platform used with the U.S. Forest Service — offline/online field data sync, ArcGIS mapping and reporting, complex multi-database security, and Xamarin/MAUI mobile development.

Now

AI-Enhanced Programmer · digitalArizona

Pairing thirty years of architecture judgment with AI tooling to design and ship creative software solutions faster than ever.

The toolbox

Skills & Stack

Languages

  • C#
  • SQL
  • Python
  • R
  • JavaScript
  • HTML5 / CSS
  • XAML
  • JSON / XML / XSLT

Frameworks

  • ASP.NET
  • .NET Core
  • .NET MAUI
  • Xamarin
  • Angular
  • Entity Framework
  • LINQ

Data & BI

  • SQL Server
  • SSRS
  • SSIS
  • Statistical modeling
  • Machine learning
  • Data visualization
  • ESRI JS
  • Qualtrics

Cloud, DevOps & AI

  • Azure
  • IIS
  • Git / GitHub
  • AI-assisted development
  • GitHub Copilot
  • Agile / Scrum

Plus 72+ certifications from Coursera, Pluralsight, and DataCamp — because the learning never stops. I wrote a book about that. Literally — see below.

The other keyboards

Beyond the Code

Software is one of the languages I write in — but not the only one. I spent my first working years as a musician and music teacher, and I still publish: poetry celebrating the Sonoran desert, and non-fiction on how busy people carve out time to learn. Creative range isn't a side note; it's why the software is good.

Let's build something

The desert never sleeps. Neither do ideas.

Looking for a senior architect who moves at AI speed — or just want to talk about the poetry of code? The inbox is always open.