Daniel Chao
Staff Software Engineer at Apple
Oakland, California, United States
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolDaniel Chao is a Staff Software Engineer at Apple with 12 years of experience building backend systems and developer tooling, currently focused on Pkl, a configuration-as-code programming language. He blends language design, build engineering, and release automation—having shipped core language versioning, native image builds for Windows, and analysis tools for Pkl. His open-source contributions span high-profile projects like DefinitelyTyped (improving TypeScript typings) and hapi (adding PATCH support and tightening tests), reflecting a strong attention to correctness and developer experience. Previously he led web services and backend architecture at Wonder Workshop, with hands-on work across React front-ends, Play/Scala services, Node.js, PostgreSQL, and Akka Persistence. Based in Oakland, he pairs formal software engineering training from Hack Reactor with an unusual background in music and project management, which surfaces in meticulous, user-minded engineering. Colleagues see him as a pragmatic systems thinker who moves language and infra projects from prototype to production.
12 years of coding experience
11 years of employment as a software developer
B.Mus, Guitar Performance (major), Saxophone Performance (minor); B.Sc, Business Marketing, B.Mus, Guitar Performance (major), Saxophone Performance (minor); B.Sc, Business Marketing at Cornerstone UniversityShanghai American SchoolSoftware Engineering/Full Stack Web Development, Software Engineering/Full Stack Web Development at Hack Reactor
Chinese, English
Stackoverflow
1reputation
0reached
0answers
0questions
Github Skills (22)
static-typing10
testing10
hapi10
http10
typescript10
typescript-definitions10
type-definition10
java10
cicd10
javas10
build-automation10
typescript-types10
nodejs10
typescripts10
gradlew10
Programming languages (21)
Github contributions (5)
apple/pkl
Feb 2024 - Apr 2025
A configuration as code language with rich validation and tooling.
Role in this project:
Back-end & Build Engineer
Back-end & Build EngineerContributions:671 reviews, 461 PRs, 311 pushes in 1 year 2 months
Contributions summary:Daniel primarily contributed to the build process and the back-end language features of the Pkl configuration language. They focused on preparing releases, specifically versioning the core language and the tools, and integrating build scripts to ensure a smooth process. Additionally, the user added enhancements to the Pkl tools by fixing publishing and adding documentation and test cases, which improved the overall development workflow. The contributions also included the build process automation for native image executables on Windows, and adding analysis tools.
configconfigurationdatajavajson
DefinitelyTyped/DefinitelyTyped
Aug 2015 - Dec 2018
The repository for high quality TypeScript type definitions.
Role in this project:Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:3 reviews, 32 commits, 15 PRs in 3 years 4 months
Contributions summary:Daniel primarily focused on enhancing the type definitions for the `cassanknex` library within the `definitelytyped` repository. Their contributions involved fixing linting errors, re-enabling dts-lint errors, and updating the type definitions to align with the library's functionality. They moved type aliases within the namespace, added new typings, and addressed syntax issues like missing semicolons. These changes improved the accuracy and usability of TypeScript typings for the `cassanknex` library.
typescript-definitionstype-definitionshigh-qualitydtsdefinitions
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.