Technology veteran Matt Robillard joins as CTO and builds senior AI and data engineering team as SmartAC accelerates platform innovation and predictive intelligence capabilities
SmartAC, the leading B2B platform powering predictive intelligence for HVAC service providers, today announced a major expansion of its technology organization under Chief Technology Officer Matt Robillard. The company has assembled a senior engineering team with deep experience building mission-critical systems across defense, cybersecurity, and large-scale machine learning—positioning SmartAC to accelerate its AI-native platform and extend its data advantage in residential HVAC.
Robillard is a technologist and entrepreneur with more than 15 years of experience building advanced systems in high-stakes, mission-critical environments. He began his career at age 17 developing real-time acoustic and image signal-processing systems for the U.S. Department of Defense, with technology deployed across U.S. Navy Virginia-class submarines. He later worked with Mandiant on cyber capabilities for the U.S. Intelligence Community and served as a platform architect at FireEye, where he helped design and commercialize frontier machine-learning systems for endpoint security. Robillard also founded and scaled a company delivering cybersecurity technology and services to the U.S. Intelligence Community, Department of Defense, and Fortune 500 customers.
Under Robillard’s leadership, SmartAC is building an engineering organization designed for long-term data advantage. The team brings rare experience operating at the intersection of real-time data ingestion, physics-informed modeling, and machine learning at scale—capabilities critical to transforming raw HVAC telemetry into durable, compounding intelligence. This foundation enables SmartAC to move beyond monitoring toward predictive diagnostics, automated insight generation, and system-level learning that improves with every connected home.
“Matt knows how to build systems where accuracy, reliability, and scale matter,” said Josh Teekell, Founder and CEO of SmartAC. “That discipline is exactly what this next phase requires as we transform years of real-world HVAC data into measurable advantage for our contractor partners and the homeowners they serve.”
To execute on SmartAC’s technology roadmap, Robillard has assembled an engineering team with deep expertise across AI/ML, platform architecture, and scalable data systems:
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Duy Vo joins as Vice President of Engineering, bringing more than 20 years of engineering leadership across venture-backed startups. He has served as Head of Engineering three times, building globally distributed teams of 70+ engineers delivering high-availability applications at scale. As a former founder of a fintech company, Vo combines first-principles thinking with pragmatic execution.
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Michael Tompkins joins as Head of Data, bringing more than 15 years of experience building data and machine learning products across fintech, marketplaces, and consumer platforms at Faire, Chime, NerdWallet, and Circle. He has built modern data infrastructure and production ML systems serving more than 130M+ users, driving 100-300% engagement lifts while scaling teams to more than 40 engineers. He holds a PhD in Computational Electrodynamics and Geophysics from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
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Jim Puls joins as Lead Mobile Engineer, bringing nearly two decades of experience designing and shipping mobile applications across consumer, fintech, productivity, and enterprise use cases. He was an early internal beta tester of the first iPhone SDK while working on Mac OS at Apple and later became the founding mobile engineer at Linear. Over his career, he has led mobile development for products at Square, Snapchat, and Twitter as well as earlier-stage companies including Mighty Networks, Quill, and AfterHour, delivering reliable, high-performance apps for customer bases ranging from the hundreds to the hundreds of millions.
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Giel de Nijs joins as Platform Architect, bringing 23 years of experience designing highly distributed, high-performance systems across cloud and on-premises environments. His background spans modern microservices architectures, platform and data systems, and infrastructure at scale. He previously led engineering at Bugcrowd, driving the transition from monolithic to service-oriented architecture, and earlier helped build technology that now underpins Amazon Redshift.
This engineering investment positions SmartAC to unlock years of proprietary HVAC system data collected from tens of thousands of connected homes nationwide. Combined with advanced machine learning models, this data foundation enablesSmartAC to deliver increasingly sophisticated predictive diagnostics, fault detection, and performance optimization tools that help contractors deliver proactive service and build lasting customer relationships.
“We’ve built the industry’s most comprehensive real-world HVAC data network,” said Teekell. “Matt and this team will transform that asset into a platform that gets smarter with every system we connect — making our contractor partners faster, more efficient, and more profitable.”
About SmartAC
SmartAC empowers HVAC service providers with smart monitoring, real-time analytics, and a seamless homeowner engagement experience designed to fuel long-term business growth. The SmartAC platform equips contractors to improve service outcomes, increase customer conversion and retention, and build scalable recurring revenue programs. By uniting connected technology with contractor-focused tools, SmartAC is elevating the future of home comfort. With SmartAC, Change is in the Air.
To see how SmartAC can impact your business, visit smartac.com and run the ROI calculator to model HVAC growth and membership outcomes today.
The post SmartAC Expands AI Leadership with Senior Engineering Team Led by CTO Matt Robillard first appeared on HVAC Insider.
