Dave Mercer
Semi Retired Ex Googler Ex Microsoftie at Elm Secure
Kirkland, Washington, United States
Summary
👤
Senior🎓
Top SchoolDave Mercer is a seasoned security engineer and hardware-minded builder with over two decades of experience across Microsoft, Google, and IoT/security startups, now semi-retired and leading Elm Secure. He specializes in high-assurance systems—PACS, PKI, HSMs, secure elements, crypto accelerators, and quantum-safe code signing—bridging firmware, cloud services, and manufacturing supply-chain security. His career spans designing Xbox and Surface secure provisioning, cloud-based content licensing, and large-scale device-to-cloud protocols, combining deep cryptographic expertise with practical production deployments. Outside of product work he pursues hands-on hardware projects—Raspberry Pi, ADCs, PCB design and FPGA development in Verilog/VHDL—bringing an unusual blend of embedded, high-speed logic and enterprise security insight. Based in Kirkland, WA, he pairs an M.Eng. in Computer Engineering with a track record of turning complex, security-critical requirements into operational systems.
8 years of coding experience
28 years of employment as a software developer
Master of Engineering (M.Eng.) Computer Engineering, Master of Engineering (M.Eng.) Computer Engineering at Royal Military College of Canada/Collège militaire royal du CanadaHigh School, High School at Stephenville Integrated High School
French, English
Github Skills (73)
rsa10
des10
signing9
javacard9
json-web-signature9
smartcard9
targeting9
tripledes9
globalplatform9
softhsm9
aes9
jose8
authentication8
c-library8
utility8
Programming languages (7)
Github contributions (5)
dmercer-google/OpenFIPS201
Jun 2020 - Aug 2020
An open source reference card application for NIST FIPS 201-2 / NIST SP800-73-4
Contributions:37 commits, 25 pushes, 3 branches in 2 months
nistfips
dmercer-google/globalplatform
Nov 2020 - Mar 2022
C library + command-line for Open- / GlobalPlatform smart cards
Contributions:9 pushes, 5 branches in 1 year 4 months
command-libraryglobalplatformc-library
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