Hi there! I'm Don.

I live in Tokyo and make software.

You can think of me as a sort of rentable cofounder, joining companies to help them build product, while at the same time providing battle-tested guidance on team development, hiring practices, growth management, and such.

It might also be accurate to describe myself as a stress-testing device for Apple laptops, as I've managed to kill two of them over the past few years (although I contend that Cupertino simply has yet to realize the full branding potential of the Macbook Coffee).

While most of my personally-owned IP is reserved for client work, I have made a few open-source contributions. The most notable are probably Mizuno and Workspace.

What people say about working with me:

We brought Don in to help with a challenging client project, and he has been fantastic to work with. He ships quickly, has a keen sense of what the customer truly needs, and was very effective at keeping everybody on the same page, even with an eight-hour time-zone difference. Christoph Beck (CTO Bitcrowd)

It was absolutely great working with Don. He has a perfect understanding of literally everything related to modern web software development, no matter if it's hosting, deployment, test automation, performance requirements or software development best practices.

I would gladly work with him again in the future. Christiane Phillips (CTO DailyDeal)

Don and I have worked together with on several occasions, and he is without doubt one of the best investments a startup can make. He is fast, focused, insightful, and brings to the table a rare combination of technical skill and business acumen. Ference Brose (CTO Idvos)

I had the pleasure of working under Don at Piku, where he provided leadership in every sense of the word. I think he can be judged by his results.

When Don arrived, things were in chaos. The platform was melting down, people were being pulled in a million different directions, and morale was low.

Within six months, Don was able to take those same individuals and turn them into a focused group doing good work that they were proud of.

He didn't do it alone, of course, but that speaks to another of Don's talents: getting the most out of people to help make the organization better.

Great CTO. David Varvel (Lead Engineer at Piku)