Dan Nixon
Scientific Software Engineer at STFC
Newcastle upon Tyne, England, United Kingdom
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolDan Nixon is a Scientific Software Engineer with 13 years of experience building practical, research-grade software and embedded systems from Newcastle upon Tyne. He combines scientific data-analysis work at STFC—developing Mantid routines for neutron scattering—with hands-on firmware and UI contributions to prominent open-source flight-controller projects like Betaflight and Cleanflight. Comfortable across the stack, his contributions span embedded OSD firmware changes, backend serial/configuration work, and full-stack configurator UI enhancements that improve pilot telemetry and usability. He has a track record of shipping tools for imaging and IoT on constrained platforms (e.g., Raspberry Pi BubbleScope work) and solving real-world integration challenges in lab and field contexts. Known for pragmatic problem-solving, he bridges research needs and user-facing software while keeping an eye on clean, maintainable code. Beyond typical scientific engineering, he brings hobbyist electronics and flight-control expertise that informs robust, low-level design choices.
12 years of coding experience
2 years of employment as a software developer
A-Level, Maths, Physics, ICT, Product Design, A-Level, Maths, Physics, ICT, Product Design at Caldew SchoolMaster of Computing, Computer Science with Games Engineering, 1st, Master of Computing, Computer Science with Games Engineering, 1st at University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne
English, Japanese
Github Skills (23)
javascript10
displays10
controller10
preflight10
firmware10
beta-release10
css10
user-interface10
c-programming10
c1110
microcontroller10
c1710
screen10
sys10
configuration-file10
Programming languages (24)
Github contributions (5)
cleanflight/cleanflight-configurator
Sep 2016 - Jan 2018
Google chrome/chromium based configuration tool for the cleanflight firmware
Role in this project:
Front-end Developer
Front-end DeveloperContributions:31 commits, 1 comment in 1 year 4 months
Contributions summary:Dan primarily focused on enhancing the user interface and functionality of the Cleanflight configurator. Their contributions included adding and modifying OSD (On-Screen Display) elements, such as toggling logos, adding altitude options, crosshairs, PID profiles, and various timer elements. The user also worked on improving the layout and style of the OSD configuration tab, including adding tooltips. They addressed some bugs and updated the configurator to utilize API versions for feature detection.
firmwarechromechromiumgoogle-chromecleanflight
betaflight/betaflight
Nov 2015 - Jan 2019
Open Source Flight Controller Firmware
Role in this project:Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:73 PRs, 348 comments, 1 issue in 3 years 2 months
Contributions summary:Dan primarily contributed to the Open Source Flight Controller Firmware. Their main contributions involved adding and refactoring OSD (On-Screen Display) code, which included features such as displaying altitude, battery warnings, and blackbox log numbers. The user made changes across multiple files, including the core OSD, serial communication, and configuration files, indicating a focus on implementing and refining flight controller display functionalities.
flightcontrollerbetaflightfirmwareflight-controller
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