Ryan Danner

Experience

1. DannerCode LLC

   Jan 2026 – present

   Founder · freelance software engineering

   Legacy migrations and scale fixes for clients, accelerated with coordinated AI agents

   Client work

   • Migrating large, long-lived LAMP applications to modern stacks — careful, incremental work on software that customers depend on, accelerated with the AI-coordinated approach below.
   • Found and fixed scale problems in features used far beyond what they were designed for: focused rewrites instead of rip-and-replace re-architecture, SQL query optimization, and new batching and storage strategies — improving response times and supported scale by anywhere from 2× to over 1000×.
   • For a smaller client, handled Linux/Unix systems administration: server upgrades, software installation, and upkeep.

   How I work

   • Work primarily in CLI agents (Claude Code and Grok CLI), driving a streamlined, iterative AI-driven loop: investigate, design, review, execute, refine.
   • Designed and continually refine a coordinator/round pattern for long-horizon AI-assisted engineering: a coordinator session delegates to worker agents tuned for specific use cases, and each round ends by finalizing the draft prompt for the next.
   • The process is open-ended and governed by rules and gates rather than a fixed script, and it evolves as it runs — each round's lessons are folded back into the process for the rounds that follow.
   • Coached developers on adopting these AI-assisted, agent-based development practices.
   • Legacy migration
   • Scale
   • Performance
   • AI-assisted development
   • Claude Code
   • Grok CLI
   • Architecture
   • PHP
   • MySQL
   • Linux
   • Systems administration
   • Coaching

2. ScienceLogic

   Apr 2008 – Jan 2026 · Reston, VA

   Nearly 18 years building ScienceLogic's datacenter and cloud management platform — LAMP-based software for managed service providers (MSPs) and large enterprise IT, including contextual dashboards, advanced bulk templating and grouping, ITSM, and multi-tenant support. I went from lead developer on the third-generation EM7, to VP of Software Engineering who never stopped architecting and coding, to senior architect for its REST API, integrations, and scale.

   Sr. Software Architect

   Feb 2023 – Jan 2026

   Led the PHP 8 migration, shaped post-Zebrium AI architecture, and modernized the legacy UI

   • Architected a "style uplift" for the legacy UI — a cosmetic overhaul that let it sit alongside the current-generation interface far more seamlessly.
   • Consulted across feature rollouts as the go-to specialist for scale and cross-application integration.
   • Initiated and led the tiger team that migrated the platform from PHP 7 to PHP 8.
   • After the Zebrium acquisition, worked on the architecture team that decided how to integrate Zebrium's IP into future in-house AI initiatives.

   • Architecture
   • Integrations
   • Scale
   • UI modernization
   • PHP

   VP, Software Engineering · Chief Architect

   Jan 2011 – Feb 2023

   Ran development and QA — while staying a hands-on architect and coder

   Leading the organization

   • Grew the engineering organization from about 14 people (8 development, 6 QA) to more than 40, while continuing as an architect and direct contributor.
   • Responsible for the Software Development and QA departments — core platform development, solutions development, and sustaining engineering — including hiring and performance reviews; reported directly to the CEO until 2014.
   • From 2014, reporting to an SVP, shifted my focus toward leading teams on architectural direction — making the architecture calls and clearing release blockers.
   • Tracked SDLC metrics such as rate of work and regression rate, and set branching strategy and release cadence.
   • Introduced engineering best practices: integrated source control with ticket and task tracking, defined the level-of-effort estimation process, and automated workflow from definition through delivery.
   • Built automated tracking and reporting of code hot spots — areas with high activity, defect rates, and churn.

   Architecting and building

   • One of the principal architects of ScienceLogic's datacenter and cloud management solution.
   • Direct contributor on key projects including interactive relational mapping, dynamic and contextual data visualization (HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript), and the continued growth of the REST API.
   • As primary architect of the in-house REST API, kept evolving it around how customers actually used it — scaling customer integrations and iterating on the API as their needs grew.
   • In 2016–2019, scaled the REST API to export data in near real time for a customer feeding a multi-stack data lake: cut response times and per-request CPU use so the API could sustain far more concurrency and throughput, reducing the customer's ingestion lag from hours to 5–15 minutes.

   • Leadership
   • Process
   • QA
   • Architecture
   • REST APIs
   • Integrations
   • Performance
   • Scale
   • Data visualization
   • JavaScript
   • PHP
   • Linux

   Lead Developer / Director

   Apr 2008 – Dec 2010

   Built the third generation of ScienceLogic EM7 — foundations still in use more than 15 years later

   • Lead developer on the third generation of ScienceLogic EM7.
   • Architected EM7's first multi-tenant role-based access control (RBAC) model, built on multi-organization tenancy.
   • Architected and developed ScienceLogic's first customer-facing REST API.
   • Architect and lead developer for critical device management features.
   • The RBAC model, multi-organization tenancy, REST API, and device management features are all still in use in the product today, more than 15 years later.

   • Architecture
   • REST APIs
   • Multi-tenancy
   • RBAC
   • PHP
   • Linux

3. TossableDigits.com

   Mar 2007 – Apr 2008

   Director of Technology

   Formalized the SDLC and built cloud-hosted communications features

   • Led the formalization of the company's software development lifecycle.
   • Designed and built an internationalization system, including front-end templating and a supporting toolkit.
   • Implemented unified communications features — a "find me" calling service, disposable phone numbers, an automated attendant, and voicemail — hosted in the cloud on Amazon AWS and S3 with an Asterisk VoIP PBX.
   • Architected and implemented a lightweight LAMP application framework.
   • Leadership
   • Process
   • Architecture
   • AWS
   • VoIP
   • PHP
   • Linux
   • Internationalization

4. Opera Telecom USA

   May 2005 – Dec 2006

   Director of Technology

   Built the premium SMS delivery platform and led IT

   • Principal developer of the premium SMS content delivery framework and its web front end.
   • Led in-house reporting tied directly to advertising, billing, refunds, and overhead.
   • Led IT through multiple datacenter migrations.
   • Leadership
   • Architecture
   • SMS
   • Reporting
   • Infrastructure

5. LogicaCMG

   Jun 2001 – May 2005

   Software Engineer III

   Led a performance initiative that cut UI response times by up to 2000×

   • Led a performance initiative that reduced web UI response times to between one-half and 1/2000th of their original durations.
   • Built PHP profiling tools and a supporting framework, wrote PHP extensions in C, and introduced query and configuration-data caching.
   • Performance
   • PHP
   • C

6. Cisco

   Jun 1998 – Jul 2001

   Software Engineer III

   Co-built a web-based voice application platform; named inventor on 23 US patents

   • Worked as a sustaining engineer and web application developer.
   • One of two primary developers on a skunkworks team that built a proof-of-concept IVR and unified communications application on web technology; named inventor on 23 US patents from that work (see below).
   • Wrote load-test scripts for an Ameritec call generator; the prototype handled over a million calls — enough that the generator's display ran out of digits and showed asterisks instead of totals.
   • VoiceXML
   • Unified communications
   • Testing

No roles match that skill.

Skills

AI-assisted engineering

Claude Code, Grok CLI, AI-assisted development

Leadership

Engineering management, Development & QA process, Project planning, Estimation

Architecture

Custom application frameworks, API design, Web application scale, Async/parallel servers and protocols

Languages & web

PHP, C, JavaScript, HTML, CSS

Platforms

Linux, Apache, MySQL, AWS, Cloud management & automation

Protocols & standards

REST APIs, VoiceXML, LDAP