Dean Ellis is a seasoned software engineer and open-source leader with 14 years of experience, currently a Senior Software Engineer at Microsoft and President of the MonoGame Foundation. He specializes in .NET tooling and mobile/Android build systems, having driven MSBuild integration, code generation, and resource handling for .NET for Android and .NET MAUI. A long-time MonoGame contributor, he has broadened the framework’s platform support and audio/content pipelines, and even led cross-platform sample ports to improve developer adoption. Based in Bedford, UK, he blends deep systems-level engineering with community stewardship, balancing Azure work with maintaining a widely used open-source game framework. Notably, his contributions often focus on the build and tooling edge—making complex platform-specific details quietly reliable for other developers.
14 years of coding experience
13 years of employment as a software developer
Bachelor of Science (BSc) Computer Software Engineering, Bachelor of Science (BSc) Computer Software Engineering at Birmingham City University
.NET for Android provides open-source bindings of the Android SDK for use with .NET managed languages such as C#
Role in this project:
Mobile Developer (Android)
Contributions:1014 reviews, 866 commits, 1144 PRs in 6 years 10 months
Contributions summary:Dean has been actively involved in the development of the .NET for Android project, focusing on build tasks and resource management within the Android platform. Their contributions primarily revolved around enhancing the build process for Android applications, specifically relating to APK generation and incorporating resources like native libraries, custom views, and manifest files. They also demonstrated expertise in handling platform-specific features and dependencies, while also testing various aspects of the build process, ensuring the proper inclusion and handling of code.
One framework for creating powerful cross-platform games.
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer
Contributions:97 reviews, 915 commits, 281 PRs in 7 years
Contributions summary:Dean primarily focused on the Windows platform of a cross-platform game framework, making various additions and updates to the core components, and sound effects of the framework. The user introduced keyboard support, including handling special keys, and also implemented content building support. Furthermore, their contributions involved enhancing the audio system, adding support for XACT audio, and a fix for the OpenAL library.
c-sharpgame-frameworkopenalgamesgame-engine
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