Hamilton Ulmer

Making tools for humans & agents

I design and build tools for data analysis, deep work, and decision-making. I run MotherDuck's AI strategy and lead its AI and frontend teams. Previously, I led application engineering at Rill. I care most about tools that enable flow, creativity, and a clearer understanding of the world.

Two equal, perpendicular planes crossing through their midpoints. A curve of technological advance rises from the old plane to a spark at the crossroads — where the scene's coordinate axes slowly spin — from which one path runs along the old plane's seam ("automate the old") and another climbs the new plane ("leverage the new").Leverage the newAutomate the oldTechnological advance

I'm excited by how AI lets us take on more ambitious work. The diagram above comes from Koestler, by way of Alan Kay. It captures a choice that comes with every major technological advance: automate what we already do, or use it to do something new. I'm most interested in the second path. Where will this technology take us?

Selected work

MotherDuck
UI / AI Lead 2026–present
UI Team Lead, Manager 2025–2026
Designer, Frontend Engineer 2023–2025
Rill
Head of Application Engineering 2022–2023
Makeunder
Singer, Composer 2011–2020
Producer, Arranger 2014–2020

Videos of me talking

Talks that inspire me

Occasional blog posts

AI-assisted parametric iconography May 25, 2026 What I've been up to – Parental Leave Edition Sep 20, 2024 finding the smallest available timegrain with DuckDB Aug 12, 2023 TIL: Dominik Moritz's just-enough-precision formatter Dec 20, 2022 duckdb wishlist, two months in: 'is the duck rude?', cancelable queries, memory footprints, & javascript UDFs Feb 21, 2022 small improvements to the duckdb node module Dec 21, 2021