Vitae

Danne Stayskal

(she / her)

http://danne.stayskal.com/

Orcas Island, WA

https://github.com/linenoise

92AE 384B 1A11 FF44 B5E0 EFF8 4E83 EADA 2A7D 4CB7

Profile

My thirty year engineering career spans software, systems, security, operations, front-end, network, database, radio-frequency, cryptography, distributed systems, and mobile engineering.

My research spans computational meta-ethics and linguistics, human rights, post-quantum cryptography, artificial intelligence, and geometric algebras.

Accomplishments

Skills

Lead Engineering
Agile, Scrum, Licensing, Capacity Modeling, Specifications, Standards, Training, Planning, Patents
Software Engineering
Perl, Clojure, TypeScript, Ruby, Objective-C, PHP, Java, C++, Python, JavaScript, Node, Erlang
Database Engineering
MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle DB, Neo4J, Redis, Memcache
Test Automation
Rspec, Rcov, Cucumber, TDD, BDD
DevOps and Systems Engineering
Capistrano, Ansible, Chef, Puppet, Salt, Nagios, OpsView
UX and Front-end Engineering
HTML, CSS, HAML, SASS, JavaScript, jQuery, React
Mobile Engineering
iOS, Android, React Native, Bluetooth
Penetration Testing
NMap, Nessus, Metasploit, BASH, Perl, Python

Experience

Istari

A digital engineering software company based in Boston, Massachusetts.
2023–present
Distinguished Engineer

Stripe

A financial services company based in Dublin, Ireland
2021–2023
Staff Engineer
Designed, prototyped, and handed off the system that securely stores all third party customer data to supported Stripe's App Store to launch on time, spec, and budget. Found and closed a severe vulnerability in the system that processes all bank account numbers. Technically led bringing all platform services that face customers into conformance with all security, reliability, compliance, availability, latency, and efficiency platform standards.
Designed and launched their first authoritative internal knowledge platform. Developed the first deprecation program at Stripe, to bring down operational costs of old tech. Mentored other staff engineers extensively. Held the pager for all maximum-severity incidents across all services at the company. Designed project planning and execution tracking tools to support all teams at Stripe. Represented stripe in calls with vendors and customers.

Oracle

A multinational tech company based in Austin, Texas
2020–2021
Architect, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure
First woman promoted to architect at Oracle Cloud. Designed and performed load tests for Oracle’s public-facing Covid support systems, simulating one-third of the United States logging in per hour. Technically vetted all global research and government grant requests for Covid support that faced all Oracle Cloud resources. Submitted three more patents in quantum cryptography and crypto system architectures.
Designed distributed caching service, consulted on design of search indexing, wide-column, and relational storage services. Submitted a systems orchestration patent. Developed Oracle Cloud’s 5G service and product architecture. Represented Oracle in telecom and crypto customer meetings. Technically vetted the majority of service team’s region build automation systems designs. Defined the measurable standard for “everything, everywhere” service deployments. Provided architectural direction and boundaries to compute capacity request board. Held monthly executive women’s working group to level the playing field at Oracle.
Reverse-engineered how realms work. Gave presentations on how to be an effective architect, mentoring and role modeling inclusive behavior, and on leveling the playing field for women in technology. Designed region and realm information service. Provided guidance to Engineering Roadmap Assessment program, Developer Central, and the Engineering Community. Wrote Oracle Cloud quantum crypto deck for the office of the CEO. Submitted three more patents in authorization systems for secure data handling. Consulted in the design of a new Oracle Cloud value.
2019–2020
Senior Principal Engineer, Oracle Cloud
Wrote Oracle Cloud’s standards for user interfaces, cryptography, and sensitive data handling. Federated the monoliths that provided all customer-facing interfaces to all Oracle Cloud services, eliminating use of Clojure, and giving service teams full-stack ownership of their products. Bridged and closed all cross-service systems gaps to create Oracle Cloud’s always-free tier, from concept to production in eight weeks, creating system tags platform in the process.
Wrote the standards by which Oracle Cloud measures its standards. Filed patent for secure cross-realm cryptography, allowing Oracle to safely coordinate change across realms. Set technical direction, negotiated standards, and vetted architectures for all customer-facing user and developer interfaces to all Oracle Cloud services. Designed release management validation service. Designed architecture of Rover. Developed guidelines for intent-driven user interface workflows. Designed analytics platform to integrate visibility into Oracle Cloud product surface. Consulted on vendor selection for network air-gap hardware.
Developed standards by which OCI measures integration risk and when risk merits executive attention and direction. Presented annual brown bags on strategies for effective engineering across organizational boundaries. Designed integrations of PaaS and SaaS interfaces for all user-facing workflows. Wrote guidelines and exercises for technical mentoring. Presented tech talk summarizing computational meta-ethics research, performed with an NGO volunteered with outside of Oracle, as a delegate to a United Nations human rights forum.
2017–2019
Principal Engineer, Oracle Cloud
Joined midway through launch of first cloud region. Fixed all known console vulnerabilities, and ten others I found in other services. Programmed the root yubikey, then wrote software that programmed all the other ones, too. Designed and built the identity provider that safeguards all Oracle Cloud production resources. Wrote console’s operations, UX review, and release management processes. Wrote what became Oracle Cloud’s architecture document template. Built cross-tenancy functionality and interfaces to the operator access tenancy.
Designed and prototyped Graphql aggregation service. Added approval workflows and interfaces to permissions systems. Consulted extensively to national security teams on US government cryptographic standards and practices. Rearchitected and maintained the authentication and authorization libraries gating all internal and external user interfaces at Oracle Cloud. Hosted monthly crypto lunches to keep us all in sync. Designed phonebook and service registry.
Developed sprint planning statistical models for teams in console, permissions, and identity. Wrote guidelines for effective emotional communication. Mentored extensively across most cloud organizations. Developed account recovery and multi-factor authentication designs and implementations for Identity. Closed remaining vision and hearing-impaired accessibility gaps on public-facing user interfaces.
Clojure, Java, TypeScript, Ruby, Redis, Oracle DB, Agile

Robly

A startup based in New York City
2013–2014
Staff Engineer
Developed and maintained a web-based enterprise customer communications application. Performed cryptographic implementation reviews and fixes. Maintained security posture and scalability of the application. Built front-end and infrastructure features to improve product marketability.
Ruby, Rails, Heroku, AWS, Sidekiq, Rspec, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redis, TDD, Agile

Copious

A digital product agency in Portland, Oregon
2013
Lead Staff Engineer
Leading builds in software, systems, devops, network, and mobile engineering disciplines. Prototyped algorithms for computer vision, augmented reality, ranking, and categorization systems. Led improvements of one publicly-traded company's Rails ecommerce web application performance by 1,108 percent, and another's PHP ecommerce application by 408 percent. Optimized queries, data transform procedures, and Linux kernel TCP/IP stack parameters. Architected, built, and maintained load-balanced, scalable IP network and relational data processing systems. Led research and development efforts to prototype bluetooth integrations and heads-up display software. Developed, deployed, and code reviewed web and mobile front-end builds.
2012–2013
Engineering Director
Built an engineering team regionally renowned for amazing digital products. Helped grow the firm from 6 people to being on the INC 5000 fastest privately-owned companies list and the Portland Business Journal's fastest growing companies list—three years in a row. Directed and hosted bi-weekly tech talks on cutting-edge languages, databases, and programming techniques. Negotiated on-call procedure respectful of both customer needs and work/life balance. Wrote and edited coding standards, functional specifications, systems and software architecture documentation, and engineering procedures. Mentored senior and junior engineers in agile, secure, scalable, test-driven development practices through pair programming and daily code commits. Served as-needed as interim project manager.
2010–2012
Lead Software Engineer
Retrofitted all legacy systems with monitoring and capacity planning tools. Automated testing, deploy, and rollback procedures. Secured, documented and standardized servers, networks and application clusters. Developed cryptographic model for financial data processing for the state of Oregon. Led discovery and documentation efforts for customers' legacy network systems. Ran monthly penetration tests against a local credit union's systems. Authored and delivered vulnerability reports. Measurably improved capacity, availability, and performance of all legacy systems. Developed, deployed, and maintained rails and node web applications for numerous local businesses.
Ruby, Rails, MongoDB, Redis, Linux, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Chef, Neo4j, Redis, JavaScript, Node, Perl, Python, Erlang, iOS, Objective-C, Java, Android, Bluetooth, NetScaler, Cisco, Memcached, TDD, Agile

eCarList

An auto dealership software development firm and agency in Dallas, Texas
2009–2010
Senior Systems and Software Engineer
Designed, developed, documented, and managed a full stack perl CGI web applications. Implemented scalable capacity modeling and failure control systems, fully automated build, test, and deployment operations, overhauled unit and functional test systems, and optimized databases. Integrated Amazon S3 and SMS messaging support. Maintained internal network and development systems. Added mapping support to iPhone application. Developed company coding style and best practice guidelines.
Perl, Apache, MySQL, FreeBSD, Linux, Nagios, JavaScript, Objective-C, Erlang, TDD, Agile

Elbit Systems of America

A multinational defense contractor headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas
2005–2008
Senior Software Engineer, Advanced Systems Research and Development
Adapted and maintained web-based, data-driven failure analysis and corrective action system. Performed information assurance and security certification for RF and network systems. Secured and deployed counter-IED cellphone jammers systems. Designed and prototyped software, firmware, and hardware for embedded cryptographic and language processing devices. Wrote and adapted Linux kernel cryptographic modules. Designed user experience (UX) and mathematical models for ground and aircraft navigation systems. Led international engineering effort to design, develop, and deploy a nation's grid network testing infrastructure. Trained software interns in agile methodologies and secure development practices. Performed statistical analysis and mathematical airflow modeling for rotorcraft systems. Debugged network protocol stack implementations. Authored, designed, reviewed, and edited specifications, manuals, software documentation, and marketing materials.
Linux, GNU Tools, C++, Windows CE, Visual Studio, Maple, Wireshark, Nmap, DITSCAP

Superhero Networks

An Internet service provider based in Mansfield, Texas
2003–2005
Senior Software Engineer, Senior Systems Administrator
Designed, developed, deployed, and administered turnkey software and systems for internet service provisioning, support ticket management, billing automation, deployment automation, and customer relationship management. Maintained fault-tolerant mail, DNS, authentication, directory services, database, and support ticket systems. Provided third-tier tech support to customers as needed. Re-cabled two dozen racks of hardware according to IEEE 802.3 specifications. Authored documentation and test procedures.
Perl, mod_perl, Apache, Linux, DJBDNS, Windows 2000, Qmail, Radiator, Active Directory

American Health Underwriters

An insurance underwriter based in Fort Worth, Texas
1999–2003
Software Developer, Network Administrator
Developed telecommunications interface and control systems. Managed medium-scale network platform migration from Novell to GNU/Linux. Managed T1 voice and data circuits. Designed, deployed and administered email, web, backup, data warehousing, billing, and quality assurance systems. Maintained hybrid TCP/IP and IPX/SPX network.
Novell NetWare, Windows XP, Visual Basic, JavaScript, Linux, Qmail, Cyrus IMAP

Expert Computer Systems

A computer repair shop in Euless, Texas
1996–1999
Systems and Network Technician
Diagnosed and repaired desktops, servers, laptops, displays, and printers. Became the youngest on record to earn full certifications in IBM hardware repair. Became certified in Microsoft and Novell operating systems, and Samsung phone system configuration. Built company reputation as regional subject matter expert for Apple hardware and software. Designed and integrated 400-node hybrid TCP/IP and IPX/SPX metropolitan-area fiber and copper network for a local school district.
Novell NetWare, Windows, DOS, Self-built diagnostics tools

Contracts and Project Work

Virtru

An email encryption startup
2015–2016
Cryptosystems Engineering
Designed, developed, and maintained cryptographically secure and scalable software and systems to process email traffic.
Node.js, JavaScript, Haraka

Evident

A network security software company
2014–2014
Artificial Intelligence Engineering
Developed and maintained software to secure customer AWS clusters through automated security scans of compute, load balancer, and configuration management systems. Kept vulnerability scanners up to date with leading threats. Build and led a distributed data science team.
Ruby, Rails, AWS, Sidekiq, Rspec, Agile, R, Python, Elastic MapReduce, Hadoop, PostgreSQL

Company Confidential

A defense electronics firm in Dallas, Texas
2009
Independent Contractor
Designed cryptographic infrastructure for rotorcraft real-time embedded data storage and retrieval device. This was the first dedicated, commercial flight safety data recorders for military helicopters.
Linux, AES, MILS, DIACAP

Binary Spring

A web application research and development firm based in Arlington, Texas
2008–2009
Senior Software Developer
Prototyped software in interdisciplinary research lab. Coordinated global network of developers and designers to produce full-stack Ruby on Rails applications. Developed user experience and interface models. Automated configuration management and deployment processes.
Ruby, Rails, Linux, Windows Server 2000, Microsoft SQL Server, Capistrano

Company Confidential

A travel agency based in Arlington, Texas
2005–2006
Independent Contractor
Designed, developed, and deployed neural network-driven weather, demographics, and airfare tracking, categorization, and prediction model.
Perl, Linux, MySQL, Windows Server 2000, Visual Studio

KNSR

A network and systems engineering firm based in North Richland Hills, Texas
2005
Senior Systems Engineer, Vice President of Infrastructure Division
Designed, deployed, and maintained fault-tolerant DNS, web, authentication, mail, database, and provisioning systems for an internet service provider. Developed and deployed wide and metropolitan-area wireless network and support systems. Maintained VOIP infrastructure on Cisco and Mikrotik hardware.
FreeBSD, Qmail, Apache, DJBDNS, FreeRADIUS, 802.11, Active Directory, MikroTik

Company Confidential

A multinational phone service reseller
2004
Independent Contractor
Designed and implemented convergent VOIP network on Cisco hardware.
Cisco, Linux

Comprehensive Consulting

A nursing home management company based in Fort Worth, Texas
2003
Senior Software and Systems Engineer, Research and Development
Developed applications to manage human resources and web content. Configured and maintained Cisco routing equipment. Coordinated with multiple offices to maintain WAN across three states.
Linux, Perl, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Cisco

Company Confidential

A security engineering firm based in Boston, Massachusetts
2001–2002
Independent Contractor
Developed and tested eigenspatial biometric facial recognition access control system for a security company.
Windows 2000, Visual Studio, Visual C++

Truswall

A roofing materials manufacturer based in Grand Prairie, Texas
1995 (summer)
Independent Contractor
Built three dozen computers from piles of older spare parts for the roofing materials engineering company to sell at discount to its employees. Tuned clients for better network performance.
Novell NetWare, Windows, DOS

Dr. Ron Rebal

A doctor based in Hurst, Texas
19931995 (part time)
Independent Contractor
Entered the technical workforce at age 13. Built computers from spare parts and improved reliability of network connections for local doctor's offices.
Novell NetWare, Windows, DOS

Education

19982008

The University of Texas at Arlington

Bachelor's in Interdisciplinary Studies
in Computational Linguistics and Artificial Intelligence
Completed summa cum laude

Academic Research Labs

Speech Rhythm and Prosody Lab

2008–2010
University of Texas at Arlington, Department of Linguistics and TESOL
Wrote linguistic analysis system to process lexicon, phonology, and morphophonology of 260 spoken languages. Writing speech recognition routines to syllabify speech stream and extract prosodic suprasegmental features of pitch, duration, and stress. Designed and implementing software to aid in the study of pitch-accent languages through automatic transcription and vowel-duration measurements. Lab directed by Dr. Jerold Edmondson.
CMU Sphinx, Perl, Python, Ruby, Rails

Dispositional Risk Influence Lab

2007–2009
University of Texas at Arlington, Department of Psychology
Earned Human Subjects Research Compliance certification, Administered weekly study under IRB guidelines. Lab directed by Dr. Dan Levine.

Rational Decision Making Lab

2005
University of Texas at Arlington, Department of Psychology
Developed card game software to evaluate a subject's performance on the Iowa Gambling Task through weekly iterations. Lab directed by Dr. Timothy Odegard.
Visual Basic, Visual Studio, Windows Server 2000

Volunteer Experience

2019–present
Delegate to United Nations Business and Human Rights Forum
Attended UN forum as an on-site delegate of the NGO, Humanistic Management Center in 2019 and virtually in 2020. Discussed AI ethics, LGBT rights, privacy and technology, and gig economy concerns in international forum.
2015–present
Member
Presenting regularly on computational meta-ethics, artificial intelligence and human rights, and leveling the playing field for women in technology.
2014–present
Co-founder, lead
Coordinated logistics and engineering for multiple large-scale, ruggedized art installations in Black Rock City, Nevada and other festivals. Lighting designer and engineer for numerous local art installations. Authored conduct guidelines and led the art support camp.
Arduino, Raspberry Pi, C++, Python
2011–present
Collective Lead, Cryptographer
Built, deployed, and maintained cryptographically secure software and systems to provide mapping and communication tools for activists to use during large-scale political demonstrations. Maintainer of the collective's Infoshop; a library of art and literature to build a free society of free people.
MySQL, PHP, iOS, Android, Tor, PGP, OTR
2013–2014
Co-founder
Built and administered a radically inclusive hackerspace / makerspace in Portland, Oregon. Building managerial data processing systems. Provisioning and maintaining library and computing equipment. Scheduling and presenting talks and workshops.
Hackerspace, Makerspace
2005–2008
Director of Operations, Site Administrator
Directed a volunteer staff to grow one of the Internet's oldest and largest writing communities. Developed content and legal strategies for the site's administrative team. Tuned intellectual property guidelines. Developed and maintained site's open source codebase. Served as content editor as needed for articles on computing, networking, and language.
Linux, Apache, MySQL, Perl, mod_perl

La Casa de la Esperanza

2003–2005 (seasonal)
Volunteer Engineer
Collected donations of computer and network hardware for an orphanage in Mexico. Designed and integrated donated parts into educational network over three summer trips. Led transportation and deployment effort in main facility in Anahuac, Chihuahua, Mexico. Documented network architecture and provided training to the home's staff.
Linux, OpenOffice, Samba

Patents

  • Quorum-based Authorization Over Asynchronous Validation of Distributed Signatures. Stayskal, Danne; Vogel, Dan. August 2021.
  • Stateless Distributed Authorization Brokering Over Holder of Key. Vogel, Dan, Stayskal, Danne. August 2021.
  • Bidirectional Cryptographic Key Escrow Signature Validation for Secure Bursting of Customer Workloads Across Classified Regions. Stayskal, Danne; Schumaker, Bob. August 2021.
  • Programmatic fault radius optimization through cross-service dependency graph annealing. Stayskal, Danne; Ganoff, Jordan; Glass, Nathan; Vogel, Dan. August 2021.
  • Management Plane Orchestration Across Service Cells. Hurley, Gabriel; Stayskal, Danne. July, 2021
  • Ephemeral Lattice Cryptographic Network Quantum Entropy Distribution. Stayskal, Danne. February, 2021
  • Secure Cross-Domain Authentication over Ephemeral Key Escrow Brokerage. Stayskal, Danne; Cabildo, Vladimir; Reyes Salas, Jorge. August 2019.
  • All patents pending.

Selected Interviews

  • March 2021 – Interviewed by Margaret Lindquist for an Oracle blog article on Five women who are taking on the COVID-19 pandemic.
  • April 2016 – Interviewed by Katsura Balanza on my mathematical life-planning tools.
  • December 2010 – Interviewed by the Portland Business Journal on my support of the local open source and unconference communities.
  • March 2009 – Interviewed by Michigan State University on my experience directing the everything2.com writing community.
  • July 2004 – Interviewed by Jessica Freeman with UTA Shorthorn for article on digital culture on university campuses.

Selected Publications

  • The Visceral Society: The Decay and Reconstruction of Human Rights in Modernity. Stayskal, Danne. 2008.
  • Owning Conversation: The intersections of the language, economics, and politics of property. Stayskal, Danne. 2008.

Invited Talks

  • Leveling the Playing Field for Women in Engineering, Oracle Cloud Brown Bag, Seattle, 2020.
  • Strategies for Effective Engineering Across Organizational Boundaries, Oracle Cloud Architecture Conference, Seattle, 2018, 2019, and 2020.
  • Mentoring and Role-Modeling Inclusive Behavior, Oracle Cloud Architecture Conference, Seattle, 2018, 2019, and 2020.
  • Emotional Communication Design Patterns, Oracle Cloud, Seattle, 2018 and 2019.
  • Emulating the beauty of nature with light and algorithms at The Conclave Sessions, MOKEDO, Seattle, 2016.
  • The Internet Under Siege and the Rise of Cyber Insurgency. Kyle Terry and Danne Stayskal at Resistance Ecology Conference 2013.
  • Everone is connected: Measuring Social Geography with Graph Databases. Danne Stayskal at Copious, 2013.
  • Improving Software Predictability with Haskell. Danne Stayskal at Copious, 2013.
  • Decentralized Crisis Communications Coordination. Danne Stayskal and Kyle Terry at Collective Agency, 2012.
  • Augmenting Reality with Simulated Synaesthesia. Danne Stayskal and Jillian Ada Burrows at CyborgCamp Portland, 2012.
  • Cryptogrphic Security in Digital Archivism. Stayskal, Danne. Part of the "Electronic Records Management: Setting up a Stable, Secure Network" panel. Danne Stayskal and Jennifer Mundy at Portland Alliance for Response, Reed College, 2012.
  • Censorship Circumvention with Open Source Tools. Danne Stayskal at Hackmeet, Noisebridge 2011.

Art Installations

  • Source Energy Labyrinth (Lead engineer), an illuminated labyrinth greets participants in the desert; Exhibited at Burning Man, Black Rock City, NV, in 2022.
  • Synferno (Lead artist and engineer), a system of synchronized flame effects for Tautology's Burning Man sound system; Recipient of Ignition Northwest art grant, exhibited at Critical Northwest, Granite Falls, WA, in 2017.
  • Shadows (Lighting and sound designer, supporting engineer), an interactive light sculpture; Recipient of a regional grant from Kiwiburn, exhibited at KiwiBurn, New Zealand, 2017, Recipient of a grant for Burien Arts A’Glow, Seattle, WA, 2017.
  • Simon 2.0 (Supporting engineer), a large, fire-breathing version of the classic children's memory game; Recipient of an honorarium grant from Black Rock Arts Foundation, exhibited at Burning Man, Black Rock City, NV, in 2015; exhibited at Cascadia in Granite Falls, WA in 2016; exhibited at SeaCompression in Seattle, WA in 2016.
  • Sea Foam (Lighting designer, lead engineer), a lighting installation exhibited at SeaCompression in Seattle, WA in 2016.
  • Rebirth (Lead artist and engineer), a lighting installation installed in the Seattle Conservatory in 2016, exhibited at Burning Man, Black Rock City, NV, 2015.
  • Inflection (Lighting and Power Lead), a large, wooden bridge with a mobius twist; Recipient of an honorarium grant from Black Rock Arts Foundation, exhibited at Burning Man in Black Rock City, NV in 2015; exhibited at Critical Northwest in Mount Vernon, WA in 2015.
  • Silk Road (Lead engineer), a series of arches in the diverse architectural styles of each major city along the ancient Silk Road; Recpiient of an honorarium grant from Black Rock Arts Foundation, exhibited at Burning Man in Black Rock City, NV in 2014; exhibited at Critical Northwest in Mount Vernon, WA in 2014.