Mike Ammerlaan
Product Manager & Builder — Sammamish, WA
ammerlaan@live.com · ammerlaan.us · LinkedIn · GitHub
Summary
Product leader who codes and ships. 27 years building developer platforms and creator ecosystems at Microsoft/Mojang — SharePoint, Microsoft 365, Bing Maps, and Minecraft — with a recent focus on hands-on building with agentic AI. I like turning APIs and tools into thriving ecosystems.
Focus: Product leadership · Developer platforms · Agentic AI · Creator ecosystems · APIs & SDKs · Go-to-market
Experience
Product Builder, Bendyline
July 2026 - current
Founded and lead Bendyline, shipping world-class productivity and entertainment software
Architected and shipped open-source applications leveraging agentic AI:
Principal Product Manager & Builder — Minecraft, Mojang Studios
Dec 2023 – July 2026
Designed and built Minecraft Creator Tools and the @minecraft/creator-tools CLI, enabling creators to automate workflows.
Shipped validator infrastructure that improved content quality metrics for 500+ add-ons in the Minecraft Marketplace.
Delivered end-to-end web tooling for Minecraft spanning ~12 creator workloads.
Grew creator education via the Minecraft Creator Channel, including producing and running Creator Camp, an online conference for Minecraft creators that reached 2,000+ viewers.
Principal Product Manager — Minecraft Bedrock Platform, Mojang Studios
Jan 2021 – Dec 2023
Drove creator-platform execution for Minecraft Bedrock.
Shipped Script APIs, unlocking entirely new genres of Bedrock content and driving Marketplace engagement.
Established API design guidelines that brought consistency and coherence across the Bedrock creator surface.
Director — Microsoft 365 Ecosystem Marketing
Aug 2016 – Jan 2021
Led developer marketing for Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Graph, SharePoint, and the broader Microsoft 365 platform.
Delivered online and in-person developer presence (keynotes, sessions, docs, samples) across the M365 ecosystem.
Launched the Microsoft 365 partner program, growing it to 50+ active partners and managing key relationships
Principal Program Manager — Bing Maps
Nov 2013 – Aug 2016
Built APIs and platform projects for Bing Maps, including the mapping API and platform within Microsoft Windows.
Modernized the Bing Maps website on top of new underlying map technologies.
Technical Integration Manager — Yammer, Inc. (acquired by Microsoft)
Aug 2012 – Nov 2013
Spearheaded post-acquisition integration of Yammer into Microsoft — spanning product, licensing, and compliance — while shipping new capabilities and clients as Product Manager.
Senior Program Manager — SharePoint Developer Platform
Mar 2011 – Aug 2012
Architected SharePoint's new cloud app model from spec through delivery, leading a team that shipped the platform and onboarded key partners.
Senior Program Manager — Office Labs
May 2010 – Mar 2011
Rapidly prototyped next-gen productivity experiences, exploring social and platform concepts ahead of mainstream adoption.
Program Manager II / Senior Program Manager — SharePoint
Aug 2003 – May 2010
Defined and shipped core extensibility features that became the foundation of the SharePoint Developer Platform — a key part of a billion-dollar ecosystem with thousands of vendors.
Education
University of Arizona
BS, Computer Science · BA (Honors), Communication · Graduated Summa Cum Laude