Miliyard Mulugeta

I build brands end to end — shoot the work, write the copy, run the strategy, and wire AI through all of it. Four years of one-chance client work, where the deadline is the moment itself.

Founder-operator in Minneapolis. Weddings, portraits and events on the camera side; positioning, offers and ad creative on the brand side. Studying marketing at Metropolitan State University with a data analytics focus.

0Yrs founder-operator

0Brands in flight

0Reviews mined

0AI models in rotation

Experience

2022 – present

2022 — Present

Founder, Lead Photographer & Creative Director

Miliyard Photography·Minneapolis, MN

Built a photography business from nothing — weddings, portraits, graduations and events — owning every touchpoint from first consultation to final delivery.
Sell the work myself: consult, qualify, quote and close, then deliver against the promise I made in the room.
Direct and light shoots where there is no second take, keeping clients calm while solving technical problems live.
Run the full post pipeline on macOS in Lightroom and Photoshop: culling, color, retouching and delivery, on deadline.

2025 — Present

Creative Brand Strategist

Early-Stage Consumer Brands·Contract

Develop positioning, offers and ad creative for early-stage direct-to-consumer brands across several parallel projects.
Build offers around desire before discount — naming the offer, stacking the value, and testing the message before a dollar goes to media.
Analyze hundreds of real customer reviews and community threads to find the recurring problem a brand can credibly own, then feed those findings straight into copy and creative.
Translate complex technical claims into plain language a first-time buyer understands.

2024 — Present

AI Creative Technologist

Self-directed·Applied across every client project

Build end-to-end AI production pipelines — script to generated stills to generated motion to synthetic voiceover to assembled cut — as repeatable workflows, not one-off prompts.
Use agentic coding tools to build my own research and automation tooling: review scrapers, data pipelines and internal apps that turn raw market noise into usable creative direction.
Run voice-of-customer research at a scale manual reading cannot reach, clustering hundreds of reviews and threads into the angles that actually move buyers.
Art-direct AI image and video output to a brand standard — treating model choice, prompt structure and reference control as craft rather than luck.

Tooling detailed under

Sep 2022 — Aug 2023

Web Developer

Valley Oasis Transportation, LLC·Blaine, MN

Designed and built the company website end to end — layout, responsive behavior, and client review cycles.
Turned vague stakeholder requests into shippable scope and presented recommendations to non-technical clients.

Detailed under

Capabilities

Sales: Consultative SellingQualifying & Closing Offer StrategyScoping & Quoting Relationship Building
Marketing: PositioningVoice-of-Customer Research Direct Response CopywritingAd Concepting Creative TestingPerformance Marketing
AI: Prompt EngineeringAgentic Workflows AI Image GenerationAI Video Generation Synthetic VoiceModel Selection
Camera: Photography DirectionLighting Sony A7R V SystemsEvent & Wedding Coverage Portraiture
Post: Adobe LightroomAdobe Photoshop Color & RetouchingCulling & Delivery

Education

In progress

B.S. Marketing — Data Analytics FocusMetropolitan State University · Twin Cities, MN

Apr 2023

Principles of UX/UIMeta

Full-stack trained, field-tested, and now building with AI. 460+ hours of Java and Spring, a shipped production site, and four years diagnosing hardware and software failures with a client standing next to me.

Comfortable in the gap between the code and the person using it: read the error state, isolate the variable, test the fix, then explain it in language that leaves someone confident rather than just unblocked.

0Bootcamp hours

0Week program

0Certifications

0Technologies

Experience

2022 – present

2024 — Present

AI Engineering & Automation

Self-directed·Applied across client work

Build automation and research tooling with agentic coding assistants — Python scripts, data pipelines and internal apps — then maintain and extend them as real projects depend on them.
Wire multi-model pipelines together through APIs: text, image, video and voice models chained into a single reproducible workflow with saved outputs and version control.
Handle the unglamorous half — API keys and rate limits, batch jobs, retries, file and media conversion, and reconciling model output that does not match its documentation.
Evaluate and select models on cost, latency and output quality rather than hype, and document what worked so the next run is faster.

Feb 2023 — Jun 2023

Junior Full Stack Developer Trainee

Generation USA·Remote

Completed a 16-week, 460+ hour full-stack Java program covering both front end and back end.
Built full-stack applications with Java, Spring Boot, HTML5 and CSS3; wrote unit tests and deployed to Heroku.
Practiced systematic debugging — reading error states, isolating causes, testing fixes, and documenting solutions for the team.
Worked in an Agile team across the full development lifecycle, from design through maintenance.

Sep 2022 — Aug 2023

Web Developer

Valley Oasis Transportation, LLC·Blaine, MN

Built and maintained the company website with HTML5 and CSS3, from layout through deployment.
Diagnosed and resolved software and browser-compatibility issues by isolating variables down to root cause.
Prioritized work across concurrent projects and communicated sequencing and timelines to the team.
Delivered against client requirements, budget and performance needs without slipping deadlines.

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2022 — Present

Hardware & Software Troubleshooting, In the Field

Miliyard Photography·Minneapolis, MN

Troubleshoot camera bodies, lenses, storage media, tethering and macOS editing workflows under time pressure, protecting shoots from data loss and downtime.
Maintain and service precision hardware — delicate optics, sensors, rigging — using the visual inspection and fine motor control careful repair requires.
Daily Apple ecosystem user across iPhone, iPad and macOS; explain fixes in plain language to people of every skill level.
De-escalate stressed customers while solving the technical problem in front of them.

Also appears under

Stack

Languages: JavaJavaScriptPython SQLHTML5CSS3
Frameworks: Spring BootSpring Security (JWT) Spring Data JPAREST APIs ReactNode.jsBootstrap
AI & Automation: Agentic Coding ToolsPrompt Engineering Multi-Model PipelinesText-to-Image APIs Text-to-Video APIsText-to-Speech APIs Batch Jobs & RetriesData Scraping
Practice: JUnitMockitoOOP SOLIDDependency Injection GitAgileRoot-Cause Debugging
Platforms: macOSApple Ecosystem VercelHeroku Google WorkspaceMicrosoft Office

Education & Training

In progress

B.S. Marketing — Data Analytics FocusMetropolitan State University · Twin Cities, MN

2023

Full Stack Java Developer Program — 460+ hoursGeneration USA

Certifications

7 selected

Junior Full Stack Java DeveloperChooseU · Jun 2023
Full Stack Web DevelopmentEvangadi Networks · Jun 2022
Full Stack Web DevelopmentAmerican Dream Academy / Coursera · Dec 2021
Machine Learning / AI Engineer Career PathCodecademy · Jul 2023
Create REST APIs with Spring and JavaCodecademy · Jun 2023
Software Architecture: Patterns for DevelopersLinkedIn · Jul 2023
Principles of UX/UIMeta · Apr 2023

Promoted to shift supervisor on reliability and calm judgment. Guest-facing work across hotel security, retail and transportation — early mornings, nights, weekends and holidays.

Routine patrols, access control, incident response and clear documentation, plus the customer-first instinct that keeps a situation from becoming an incident in the first place.

0Yrs guest-facing

0Employers

0Promotion to supervisor

24/7Availability

Experience

2021 – present

2023 — 2025

Shift Supervisor — Security & Valet

Hyatt Place Downtown St. Paul·St. Paul, MN

Led shifts as supervisor — holding coverage and standards, and running clean handoffs between team members.
Completed routine patrol rounds of lobby, common areas, entrances and perimeter to deter unwanted activity.
Supported access control by monitoring entry points and assisting guests and employees with a customer-first approach.
Responded to disturbances and safety concerns calmly — de-escalating where possible, escalating where appropriate.
Wrote clear activity logs and incident documentation for leadership follow-up.

2022 — Present

Valet Driver & Operations

Oasis Transportation·Minnesota

Coordinate vehicle flow and curbside activity in busy, time-sensitive conditions.
Maintain situational awareness and follow procedure to reduce risk before it becomes an incident.
Provide guest-facing service with discretion and calm communication.

2023 — Present

Driver & Delivery Professional

AVIA Enterprises·Spark·DoorDash

Serve dozens of customers daily across morning transport and evening delivery routes with a near-perfect reliability record.
Resolve time-sensitive customer concerns independently while balancing several deliveries at once.

2021 — 2023

Customer Service Associate

The Home Depot·Fridley, MN

Assisted customers in a high-traffic store, solving problems and handling concerns with patience.
Communicated clearly under pressure and held a calm presence through difficult interactions.

Capabilities

Security: Unarmed Patrol RoundsPerimeter Checks Access ControlVisitor Management High-Visibility DeterrenceSituational Awareness
Response: De-escalationIncident Response Activity Logs & ReportsConflict Resolution
Guest: Shift SupervisionGuest Relations Upselling & RecommendationsCash Handling & POS Clear CommunicationReliability

Education

In progress

B.S. Marketing — Data Analytics FocusMetropolitan State University · Twin Cities, MN

The through-line

Everything I do points back to one question: why do people buy? The camera, the code, the AI pipelines — they are all instruments for the same job. Find the real reason someone says yes, then say it back to them clearly enough that they act.

Three tracks, one operator. Switch lenses above — or press 1, 2, 3.