Curriculum Vitae
Daniel D'Aquino
I build products to empower individuals and small teams. My track record is turning ambiguous ideas and observations into full-stack features, improvements, and products with measurable impact. I am now deepening that engineering practice with human-centred design, design thinking, and Jobs-to-be-Done — so that the things I ship are rooted ever more deeply in real human needs.
Core strengths
Full-stack software engineering, deep technical investigation, systems thinking, good sense of UX design, and a holistic knowledge of different product development disciplines.
Best fit
Small motivated and remote teams that value craftsmanship, respectful teamwork, low-distraction work environments, and strive to put human user needs at the forefront of every product decision.
I worked with
Python (Pytest/QA automation), Swift, SwiftUI, Rust, JavaScript, TypeScript, React, SQL, Docker, and embedded systems.
Methodologies I like
Jobs-to-be-done framework , Human-centred Design , and Shape Up.
Education and Work Experience
Founder
Leaf Computer
Product Discovery · Rust · Swift · Next.js
- Conducted product discovery, built prototypes, and iterated on early versions to find product-market fit.
- Created Lumen Blocks, an open-source Rust UI component library for Dioxus with accessible, styled components and interactive documentation, which was praised by the creator of Dioxus and some users who used it for personal projects, and achieved 111 stars on Github.
- Built full-stack and iOS prototypes spanning a symbolic equation solver, a WYSIWYG math editor, and graph algorithms.
Lead Fullstack iOS Engineer
2023 – 2026Part-time contract · Damus
Swift · SwiftUI · Rust · LMDB · C · JavaScript · NixOS
- Led all technical maintenance and feature development for Damus iOS, the largest open-source iOS Nostr client, used by thousands of daily active users.
- Proactively led a series of large architectural decisions to address deep structural problems causing several production crashes, race conditions, and stale data views — eliminating whole classes of issues and improving perceived stability. Changes spanned 120+ files with few regressions in production.
- Designed and built the entire push-notification pipeline from conception to production: a Rust relay bridging distributed Nostr events to Apple APNS, plus full iOS client integration including local DM decryption and best-effort distributed data enrichment in a notification service extension.
- Architected and built Damus Purple, a premium subscription product, across iOS frontend, Node.js backend, and React/web frontend; achieved 500+ successful signups in production.
- Designed the checkout UI/UX, including a novel authentication pattern suited to Nostr's pubkey-based identity, and a delightful welcome motion graphic animation that users excitedly shared on social media to show their membership purchase, helping distribution.
- Solved a UI/UX challenge of rendering arbitrarily deep conversation thread trees as a linear, navigable chat UI on mobile, resolving previous user confusion.
Software Developer
Multiple part-time contracts · Bobbles Digital
TypeScript · React · Next.js · PostgreSQL · Supabase
- Maintained digital technical infrastructure for this boutique creative agency.
- Proactively identified client communication and workflow inefficiencies, then conceptualized, designed, and built a custom client dashboard (Supabase + Next.js) that became the business's shared system of record. The owner said he could not imagine running the business without it.
- Maintained and expanded the dashboard over 3+ years based on evolving business needs, adding kanban task management, templated requests, review flows, a subscription-aware service catalog, and a user credit system.
- Prototyped an Airtable-based system of record for an edtech company struggling with Google Sheets operations, winning a long-term contract for Bobbles. Built a custom React/Next.js student intake booking system. These systems are still used to manage operations with hundreds of students, 4 years later.
Firmware Test Engineer
Full-time · Motorola Solutions/Avigilon
Python · Pytest · Selenium · Embedded Systems · Firmware · QA Engineering · PTZ cameras · Linux
- Within my first 3 months, identified inefficiencies in a newly mandated test reporting workflow that was costing the team hours of manual work each month and automated it; this automation was widely adopted by the team for years.
- Maintained large automated testing frameworks for advanced security cameras using Python, Pytest, and Selenium.
- Investigated and reproduced complex firmware issues across lens control, imaging, video streaming, networking, PTZ control, and web interfaces, writing detailed, reproducible bug reports.
- Served as quality advocate for select PTZ camera products, shaping QA strategy, orienting development teams on testing best practices, and leading integration of new products with the automated test framework.
- Led and coordinated pre-release QA testing for multiple firmware releases under tight deadlines, from scope planning and team coordination to QA signoff.
Neural Networks for Machine Learning
Coursera Certificate · University of Toronto
Machine Learning · Neural Networks · Deep Learning
Completed an online course on Neural Networks for Machine Learning taught by Geoffrey Hinton from the University of Toronto. The course covered fundamental concepts in neural networks including backpropagation, convolutional neural networks, recurrent neural networks, and other deep learning architectures.
Mechatronics Engineering
Diploma · British Columbia Institute of Technology
Embedded Systems Programming · C · Assembly · MCUs (MSP430) · Sensor and Peripheral Interfacing · Digital Electronics · DC brushed motors · Control Systems
- Relevant Coursework: Embedded C, Assembly, MCUs, Digital Electronics, Control Systems
- Graduated with distinction with the third-highest GPA of my class.
- Earned two scholarships for academic performance.
- Co-built RoboPost as a capstone project: an autonomous line-following delivery robot with line fork detection, station/destination detection, and real-time Wi-Fi telemetry. Scoped and selected individual electronic and mechanical components, designed and wired the circuits, hand-fabricated a custom PCB, designed the control systems, and wrote custom firmware in C for an MSP430 MCU.
- Capstone project selected to represent BCIT at the 2018 BC Tech Summit.
Selected projects
Damus
Long-term product engineering work on the largest iOS Nostr client, including push notifications, subscriptions, architecture improvements, and bug fixes.
Avigilon H4A and H5A PTZ camera families
Firmware QA engineering and advocacy for a PTZ security camera with AI-powered video analytics.
Bobbles Digital Client Dashboard
A client dashboard and workflow system for streamlining task requests, communication, scheduling, and ongoing client work.
Lumen Blocks
An open-source Rust UI component library for Dioxus inspired by the developer experience of tools like shadcn and tailwind, built to make UI development more composable and ergonomic.
nparrot
A small CLI utility for bridging local AI agents and other command-line tools with Nostr direct messages.
RoboPost
An autonomous line-following robot for small-scale automated delivery. Capstone project for BCIT Robotics, featured at the BC Tech Summit 2018.
You will probably like my work if:
- You need a resourceful, interdisciplinary software engineer who can see the bigger picture and integrate insights from different product development disciplines into my work.
- You need someone who can work across both frontend and backend and bring them together into a coherent product without a lot of hand-holding.
- You need someone who can dig deep to find and fix challenging bugs.
- You are flexible with regards to time zone.
I like to work with companies and teams that:
- Build meaningful products, and care deeply about the needs of humans who use them.
- Nurture a low-distraction environment that makes high-quality deep work possible.
- Value craftsmanship, quality, and building value long-term.
- Value hard work while maintaining a healthy work-life balance.
- Are remote-work friendly.
- Foster a healthy culture where everyone is treated with respect, honest and constructive feedback is encouraged, solving problems and improving processes is prioritized over assigning blame, and the best ideas prevail regardless of their source.
Links & Contact
If you're building human-centred tools and want someone who can bridge software engineering and other product development disciplines, please feel free to reach out.