Work

The natural evolution of your business.

Employment and highlights — Kelly Michels, with ongoing focus on software design and UI design alongside QA and delivery.

Employment

Principal Software QA Engineer / Senior QA Engineer — Autodesk (2006–2026)

Impact & recognition highlights

  • Supported thousands of beta users across continuous two-week sprint release cycles, ensuring stability, feedback integration, and production readiness.
  • Core QA contributor for Autodesk AI MotionMaker and ML Toolkit from initial development through production release of AI-driven animation workflows.
  • Supported executive demo readiness for Autodesk AI MotionMaker showcased at TechX 2025, presented by Autodesk CEO Andrew Anagnost.
  • Contributed to Autodesk AI MotionMaker earning the Customer Experience Award at TechX 2026 through end-to-end QA validation and release stability.
  • Led QA strategy and execution for flagship Autodesk Maya and 3ds Max platforms.
  • Built automation and API testing tools using Python, PHP, PowerShell, and AI-assisted workflows (Cursor, GitHub, Copilot).
  • Integrated automated testing into Jenkins CI/CD pipelines with Artifactory artifact management.
  • Authored test plans, regression strategies, and validation matrices.
  • Extensive experience working in an Agile, highly collaborative, team-based environment, partnering with engineering, product, UX, and release teams across continuous two-week sprint cycles.
  • Corporate-level Centercode Administrator for Autodesk, owning enterprise beta infrastructure and serving as Beta Program Manager for Autodesk 3ds Max and Maya.

Projects

SmartPlant EHS

Industrial EHS permit lifecycle platform for multi-plant manufacturers — tracking obligations, evidence, and compliance workflows.

Open case study

AWS hosting & operations

Evomedia.net production: AWS EC2 with Apache — setup, VirtualHost and TLS configuration, deploy workflows, and ongoing maintenance. More on the Expertise page.