Dr. David Melville

What is your personal mission at Formulary?

Beyond having a good time and enjoying my working life, my mission is to ride the wave of AI and maximize its usefulness, in an environment I find productive and interesting.

What first got you into engineering, and what drew you to fintech and fund operations?

The people, first and foremost. Working with Alfia, Richard and the rest of the team, and their ambition, drew me to the challenge.

I’ve been in the AI world for a while, but I’ve often been at a disadvantage because of how open-ended the challenges were. What’s exciting here is that the problems and opportunities are well-defined and are use cases that AI can solve very well.

AI is reshaping how software gets built and how financial operations run. Where do you think things are headed?

We’re moving toward automating all of the laborious work so that humans can do what they enjoy or what they’re responsible for. That’s the essence of this moment: making sure AI delivers in a way people can trust.

What’s interesting about fund administration is the concept that a person is responsible for the final numbers and calculations. In other industries, you can automate people out entirely. Here, a person is required, and this demands a partnership between people and AI.

What does building at Formulary mean? How is it different?

You have to approach the development process iteratively. You learn what the right solution is as you go.

That’s why it’s important that our users sit side by side with us. We’re taking accountants and our clients from where they are, in Excel-based workflows, to where they could be, with AI. To do this well, we need to strike a balance and bring them along on the journey while they do their work, day to day.

We’re heading in a new direction where we gain efficiency while making sure accountants can still do their jobs.

Tackling this challenge is about listening, being creative, and observing how accountants actually do their work. Then we look for opportunities to move toward a true partnership between accountants and AI.

How is building for fund administration different from other engineering work you’ve done at AI research labs and other startups?

What’s stayed the same is solving problems, being innovative, experimenting with solutions and figuring out whether we’ve actually solved the problem.

What’s different is the time horizon. In research, the time horizon was years, or open-ended. Over time, my horizons have gotten shorter and shorter. At Formulary, it is day to day. We see the challenge, tackle it, and deliver as fast as we can. I’ve enjoyed that journey, and I’m excited to be tightly integrated with the team and our clients and see the impact every day.

The great thing about Formulary is that daily feedback gives me a better chance of getting it right. The point of research is to take risks without knowing whether the outcome will solve the problem. Here, the result must solve the problem. You get to be creative and ambitious in how you go about it, but it has to work. That constraint is great, because it means you’re delivering something of value.

It also forces you to engage with other people. You can’t sit in a room by yourself. You have to engage with clients and your own team members. This is inspiring and motivating.

How would you describe engineering culture at Formulary compared with other places you’ve worked?

Formulary’s engineering culture is ambitious, and there’s no bureaucracy. Nothing blocks you from making progress. Those two things let us move quickly.

Who does well on the Formulary engineering team? Is there a type of engineer who fits best?

Someone who is technically ambitious and interested in driving the future, but who also enjoys building and delivering concrete things.

We have a culture of humility and curiosity. To work in a space with this much impact, you have to be open to hearing dissent and adapting to whatever change you see around you.

If someone is thinking about joining Formulary as an engineer, what would you want them to know?

Buckle up, and get ready for a fun engineering journey.

Describe a problem you’ve solved here that you couldn’t have solved anywhere else.

AI has created a unique moment in engineering, and Formulary is very open to engaging with that moment fully. You need the moment, the environment, and the company to all come together.

I’ve never experienced anything like what I’m experiencing now. Formulary being so AI-first while AI itself is accelerating is hugely exciting and challenging. You have to be willing to change how you engineer from month to month.

In finance, a small error can have big consequences. How do you balance moving fast with getting it exactly right?

You start by making strong foundational decisions about the technology your system is built on and the engineering philosophies you will follow. Once you build on that foundation, you test and validate it thoroughly so you can trust it.

Where do you draw the line between what AI should handle and what needs a human in the loop?

As an engineer, you’re responsible for choosing the problem you’re going after. Then, since there are so many ways to solve any problem, you use your taste to direct the AI toward a solution. You have to be clear and up front about the plan and execution path for the AI. Then you keep an eye on what happens and validate the output to make sure it’s doing what you expect.

You have to stay engaged, but as a manager of the process rather than the doer.

What’s something you shipped that you’re especially proud of?

The MCP server was pretty cool, because it allows people to do things that feel like magic to them. Conceptually it wasn’t a big lift, but the impact is powerful.

What excites you the most about the future of AI in fund administration?

AI has the potential to transform our lives by taking us away from the mundane and pushing us toward what we enjoy. There’s huge upside for accountants and for our clients.

Even though AI is doing a lot of the coding, we as engineers are still responsible for delivering it to the people who use it. Turning that potential into reality is very exciting.

How would you describe Formulary in one word?

Innovative.