AJ Danelz
Table of Contents
Cloud-Native | Full-Stack Dev | Developer & OSS Advocate
Summary
Full-Stack engineer and Golang enthusiast with cloud-native, distributed systems expertise. Experienced in building scalable applications, event-driven microservices, and advocating for developer tools and frameworks. Flexible with a proven ability to collaborate globally across technical and non-technical teams. Self-motivated and empathetic, focusing on improving the developer experience and fostering open-source communities.
Core Competencies
- Languages & Frameworks: Golang, Java, Spring Boot, Vue.js, React, TypeScript, Node.js
- Cloud & Infrastructure: Docker, Kubernetes, Helm, AWS, Google Cloud
- Event Streaming & Messaging: Kafka, gRPC, Protobuf, RabbitMQ
- Database Technologies: PostgreSQL, Redis, ElasticSearch, Google Cloud API
- DevOps & CI/CD: Git, Jenkins, CircleCI, Terraform, AWS CDK, Helm
- Developer Advocacy & Community: Technical Content Creation, Open-Source Maintenance, Public Speaking, Event Management
- Technical Leadership: Mentoring, People Management, Thought Leadership, Vision & Goal planning, Metric & KPI reporting
Professional Experience
Head of Developer Experience
Aklivity | Mar 2023 - Nov 2024
Aklivity is an early-stage startup that enables event-driven solutions by proxying multiple API protocols onto Apache Kafka. I created and executed the vision for all aspects of community engagement and product documentation.
- Led the creation of a new, streamlined developer onboarding experience for the Zilla project , including documentation, examples repositories, and interactive demos.
- Enhanced community engagement through regular updates, feature announcements, and demo walkthroughs.
- Acted as the first point of contact for community troubleshooting and feedback, improving product quality based on user input.
- Represented the company at developer conferences and hackathons, creating product demos and handling booth responsibilities.
OSS Maintainer
Independent | Jan 2019 - Present
- Gohlay : Creator of an open-source CLI tool written in Golang that interacts with Kafka to deliver scheduled messages. The tool is lightweight, scalable, and operates without external data dependencies.
- vue-pdf : Maintainer of a Vue.js library for rendering individual PDF pages as markup elements.
- awesome-data-engineering : Maintain the list, ensuring it remains up-to-date with the latest tools and technologies.
Head of Developer Relations
WSO2 | Jan 2022 - Mar 2023
- Led the Developer Relations team, building a thriving community around WSO2’s open-source and SaaS offerings, including the Ballerina programming language.
- Spearheaded the creation of the Ballerina Exercism.io track , improving language education and adoption.
- Coordinated global events, including hackathons and conferences.
- Spoke on technical topics at industry events.
- Collaborated with product teams and technical writers to enhance documentation and user experience across WSO2 products.
Lead Solutions Engineer
WSO2 | Feb 2021 - Jan 2022
- Supported sales teams in driving the adoption of WSO2 products by providing technical consultations and solutions.
- Secured the first customer for the Asgardeo SaaS platform .
- Authored an opinion article on identity management and tech debt .
Senior Full Stack Developer
BMW - Apps and Services | Feb 2020 - Feb 2021
- Contributed to the development of BMW Charge Forward , a platform optimizing electric vehicle charging through real-time energy data.
- Built backend services using Node.js and NestJS, integrating with AWS services (Lambda, SQS, Kinesis) to handle streams of vehicle data.
Senior Enterprise Application Engineer
AFS Logistics | 2018 - Feb 2020
- Led development of a Transportation Management System using microservices architecture with Spring Boot, Golang, Kafka, Redis, PostgreSQL, and Kubernetes.
- Transportation Management System: A high-performance system with microservices deployed using Kubernetes and Helm. Key components included an A Rating System, a Document Manager, and a scalable Delayed Message Delivery service.
- Designed and implemented a Delayed Message Delivery Service that scaled efficiently using Kafka and Redis.
Full Stack Mentor
Thinkful Inc | 2018 - 2020
- Mentored students in React.js and web design patterns, helping them overcome development hurdles and deepening their understanding of full-stack web development.
Enterprise Application Engineer
UberFreight | 2012 - 2018
- I maintained legacy applications, worked on improvements and new features of existing products like Real-time Search, and architected new applications like the Dynamic EDI Parser.
- Real-time Search: Added an ElasticSearch API on top of a monolithic Groovy on Grails, PostgreSQL, and Hibernate ORM application, reducing processing load and improving user-built query latency.
- Dynamic EDI Parser: Developed an algorithm to parse EDI files dynamically into object formats (XML, JSON) for easier integration and extensibility.
Public Contributions
- Product Demos on GitHub
- Product Documentation
- Community Updates and Blog Posts
- Ballerina Exercism.io Track
Education
B.S. in Computer Science (Cum Laude) Southern Wesleyan University
Additional Information
- Awards: Eagle Scout with Silver Palm
- Research: Path Planning using Dijkstra and Lightning Enhancement