Dan Smith
Senior Principal Software Engineer at Red Hat
Hillsboro, Oregon, United States
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolDan Smith is a Senior Principal Software Engineer with 26 years of experience specializing in virtualization, cloud infrastructure, and open-source systems engineering. Based in Hillsboro, Oregon, he has driven core OpenStack Nova development at Red Hat and served on the OpenStack Technical Committee, shaping upgrade and architecture strategy across the ecosystem. His work spans low-level kernel and hypervisor innovations—such as checkpoint/restart and TCP migration implemented during his time at IBM—to high-level cloud management, automation, and testing contributions across Glance, Nova, Tempest, and DevStack. A prolific OSS contributor, Dan has improved image authorization, network interface management, test coverage, and DevStack performance, demonstrating a rare blend of systems programming and platform reliability focus. He pairs deep Linux and Python expertise with practical experience in enterprise standards like CIM and storage/migration technologies. Colleagues rely on him for stabilizing complex upgrades and translating kernel-level capabilities into resilient cloud services.
26 years of coding experience
12 years of employment as a software developer
MS Computer Science, MS Computer Science at North Carolina State UniversityBS Computer Science, BS Computer Science at Appalachian State University
Github Skills (57)
unit-testing10
debugging10
authorizations10
back-end-development10
python10
apidoc10
architecture10
bash10
system10
automation10
openstack10
api10
performance-optimization10
authorization10
rest-api10
Programming languages (17)
Github contributions (5)
kk7ds/chirp
May 2012 - Jan 2023
Official git repo for the CHIRP project
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:660 reviews, 1117 commits, 1838 PRs in 10 years 10 months
Contributions summary:Dan contributed to the CHIRP project by implementing French translations, allowing developers to specify the hexdump address format, and integrating a locale fix. They also addressed build system issues and made minor user interface improvements, demonstrating an ability to address code issues across multiple project areas. The user's involvement suggests expertise in code optimization and debugging for a cross-platform open-source project.
openstack/nova
Jun 2012 - Nov 2022
OpenStack Compute (Nova). Mirror of code maintained at opendev.org.
Role in this project:Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:1290 commits in 10 years 6 months
Contributions summary:Dan's contributions focus on enhancing and maintaining the backend infrastructure of the OpenStack Compute (Nova) project, primarily involving changes to the code related to instance creation and management within a multi-cell environment. Their work includes implementing performance improvements by optimizing resource allocation and resolving migration-related issues, along with modifying existing API code. The user is also working on integration and support for new feature additions, for instance, image precaching functionality, and code related to the volume backed instances.
openstack
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