Dan Thompson
Senior Software Design Engineer at Microsoft
Redmond, Washington, United States
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolDan Thompson is a Senior Software Design Engineer with 13+ years building robust, high-performance Windows and .NET systems at Microsoft, focused on asynchronous, reliable, and easy-to-use solutions. He combines low-level Win32 and kernel-mode debugging expertise (windbg, ETW, ESENT) with higher-layer .NET work (WCF, WPF, PowerShell modules) to diagnose and fix hairy cross-layer problems. His open-source contributions to high-profile projects like PowerShell and Windows Terminal show a practical knack for performance tuning, stability fixes, and thoughtful API improvements—such as optimizing PSReadLine timing and expanding dynamic cmdlet behavior. Based in Redmond, he repeatedly leverages reuse, cross-team collaboration, and data-driven quality analysis to ship features quickly without sacrificing reliability. Colleagues rely on him for mentoring on deep debugging, creative system-level fixes, and pragmatic design that delights end users, admins, and developers alike.
13 years of coding experience
13 years of employment as a software developer
Bachelor's Degree, Computer Science, Bachelor's Degree, Computer Science at Brigham Young University
Stackoverflow
459reputation
10kreached
20answers
5questions
Github Skills (30)
debugging10
debug10
multithreading10
thread10
performance-optimization10
hyper-threading10
dotnet-core10
command-line10
powershell10
windows-terminal10
threaded10
csharp10
c-language9
netframework9
windows9
Programming languages (16)
Github contributions (5)
microsoft/DbgShell
Oct 2017 - May 2022
A PowerShell front-end for the Windows debugger engine.
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer & Debugging Tools Specialist
Back-end Developer & Debugging Tools SpecialistContributions:4 releases, 8 reviews, 130 commits in 4 years 8 months
Contributions summary:Dan appears to be primarily focused on the development and maintenance of the `microsoft/dbgshell` project, a PowerShell front-end for the Windows debugger engine. Their contributions involve implementing new features like adding aliases and options to existing commands to enhance functionality, and resolving identified issues. The user also addressed core aspects of the project by fixing error handling and the console output to improve user experience.
mdtwindowspowershellhyper-vwindows-service
microsoft/terminal
May 2020 - Aug 2022
The new Windows Terminal and the original Windows console host, all in the same place!
Role in this project:Full-stack Developer
Full-stack DeveloperContributions:23 reviews, 9 commits, 7 PRs in 2 years 3 months
Contributions summary:Dan contributed to the Windows Terminal project by addressing bugs and implementing new features. They fixed a typo in a command script, which improved the build process. The user also refactored and normalized method names within the TextAttribute class, enhancing code readability and maintainability. Furthermore, they implemented the "EnableColorSelection" feature, which expanded the terminal's functionality.
placewslwindows-consolecmdwindows
Find and Hire Top DevelopersWe’ve analyzed the programming source code of over 60 million software developers on GitHub and scored them by 50,000 skills. Sign-up on Prog,AI to search for software developers.