Scott Darnell
Senior Software Engineer II at CrowdStrike
Redmond, Washington, United States
Summary
🤩
RockstarScott Darnell is a seasoned systems engineer with over two decades of experience and nine years focused on advanced app lifecycle, activation, and platform integration for Windows. He has deep expertise in app execution, registration, and background/foreground activation, contributing key APIs and features to the Windows App SDK (including AppLifecycle, RequestRestartNow, and restart agent infrastructure). At Microsoft he drove cross-release platform work—improving performance, unifying activation models, and shaving developer inner-loop time by minutes while shrinking binary footprints. Now a Senior Software Engineer II at CrowdStrike in Redmond, he brings systems-level thinking to security-focused engineering. A self-taught developer who mentors teams and enjoys solving hard architectural problems, he pairs pragmatic implementation with telemetry-driven decisions. Notably, his open-source contributions to the high-profile microsoft/WindowsAppSDK reflect both low-level platform chops and a focus on developer ergonomics.
9 years of coding experience
24 years of employment as a software developer
Github Skills (12)
windows10
apim10
win32gui10
c-language10
api10
ws-api10
cpp10
cprogramming-language10
winapi10
api-design10
wp-api10
csharp5
Programming languages (3)
Github contributions (5)
microsoft/WindowsAppSDK
Oct 2020 - Jan 2022
The Windows App SDK empowers all Windows desktop apps with modern Windows UI, APIs, and platform features, including back-compat support, shipped via NuGet.
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer & API Developer
Back-end Developer & API DeveloperContributions:94 reviews, 120 commits, 29 PRs in 1 year 2 months
Contributions summary:Scott primarily focused on developing the AppLifecycle feature within the Windows App SDK, specifically handling application activation and registration. They implemented protocol and file type association registration, including code for command-line argument parsing. Additionally, the user worked on creating the `RequestRestartNow` API and building the supporting infrastructure, which involved designing and implementing the restart agent. Their contributions involved modifications to several core files including `AppInstance.cpp` and `ActivationRegistrationManager.cpp` to facilitate new features.
desktop-appswindows-10windows-11windows-app-sdkwindows-app
microsoft/devhome
Aug 2024 - Sep 2024
The new Dev Home experience for Windows!
Contributions:35 reviews, 1 PR, 40 pushes in 25 days
dashboarddeveloper-toolsrepository-managementsetupwindows
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.