Senior Software Engineer · AI & Platform Engineering
AI & Agentic Engineering · Platform Modernization · DevOps Automation · Software Engineering
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With more than 25 years of software engineering experience, my career has evolved from designing and developing applications to modernizing enterprise platforms, architecting cloud solutions, and building sophisticated DevOps automation. Throughout that progression, I've focused on solving complex engineering challenges, streamlining development processes, and building reusable solutions that improve how software is developed, delivered, and maintained.
Today, I'm extending that foundation into AI and agentic engineering, combining deep software development expertise with Microsoft Azure, GitHub Enterprise, and emerging AI technologies such as Claude, Codex, and Copilot. I'm particularly interested in exploring what's possible through hands-on prototyping, building intelligent solutions, and applying decades of engineering judgment to evaluate their quality, efficiency, and long-term maintainability.
Along the way, I've written software through every major shift in how it's built, and I've earned certifications at each stage. I am bringing that history to AI. When an AI assistant generates code, I bring the experience to evaluate its design, quality, efficiency, and maintainability—not simply whether it runs.
I started out building web applications for online lead generation, where I spent nine years reengineering high-transaction systems and introducing source control, automated .NET builds, and Agile practices along the way.
From there I moved into architecture. I connected the many systems behind a nationwide marine dealership network through REST APIs and event-driven services, then reworked the architecture behind a financial transaction platform for the pawnbroker industry, moving it to Azure and cutting deployments from about four hours to 15 minutes.
That cloud work pulled me into platform engineering. I built self-service Azure provisioning and multi-region CI/CD pipelines, then modernized Azure infrastructure and software delivery for about 200 developers, consolidating five development environments into two and saving more than $200,000 a year.
Today I'm a consultant at Xebia, helping organizations from small development teams to global enterprises modernize their development platforms. That means migrating to GitHub Enterprise and GitHub Actions, meeting security and compliance requirements, and adopting GitHub Copilot and agentic development practices.
The full story, role by role, is at david-daniels.info.
I've always believed that experience and continued learning go hand in hand. From my earliest software development certifications to cloud platforms, DevOps, and now AI, each one represents something I've challenged myself to learn and understand. Some are decades old, others brand new, and I'm proud of every one of them.
