DANIEL NORMAN
San Diego, CA
daniel@danielnorman.net
github.com/dnorman
linkedin.com/in/danieldnorman

I build databases, decision tools, and operational systems where the hard part
is knowing what must stay true.

FULL HISTORY

Government-notice understanding
Client work | 2026 | status: shipped
Two-phase LLM pipeline resolving scanned government notices against a
45,000-entity ontology, then extracting fields. The model proposes;
deterministic code decides. Production in ten weeks.

Warehouse-robotics simulator
Client work | 2026-now | status: active
Discrete-event simulator validating robotic warehouse designs for a major
international automation company. 2.1M events per 8-hour shift, deterministic;
kinematic safe-interval path planning; GPU replay visualizer.
- 2.1M discrete events per simulated 8-hour warehouse shift, run-to-run
  deterministic (client engagement, 2026-07)

Field-service platform
Client work | 2026 | status: shipped
One Rust core compiled to web, native mobile, and server for a multi-market
service operator - recurring schedules, and a from-scratch route optimizer
sequencing 200 stops in under a second. Foundation built solo; the client team
carried it to release.

Acquisition technical diligence
Client work | 2025 | status: shipped
Reverse-engineered a customer-data platform from 84 repositories and 2M lines
with no vendor docs; scripted static-analysis pipeline; scored red/yellow-flag
report to the acquirer.
- 2M lines of code audited across 84 repositories for one acquisition
  diligence (client engagement, 2025-12)

Ankurah
Open source | 2024-now | status: active
Offline-first reactive database in Rust: one model definition compiles to
server, browser (WASM), and mobile; live queries, per-field merge, pluggable
storage. 29 crates, ~73k lines, 925 tests.
- 233k all-time downloads across the ankurah crate family - ankurah, ankql,
  and friends (crates.io, 2026-08)
- documentation: ankurah.org
- source: github.com/ankurah/ankurah
- crates.io: crates.io/crates/ankurah

Edvo - co-founder & CTO
Role | 2021-23 | status: ended
Spatial personal database and collaborative browser: web pages, notes, and
references in conceptual proximity on an infinite canvas.

Mindbeam / mindbase
Research | 2020-22 | status: archived
R&D on distributed hypergraph databases and knowledge representation - "a
database for convergent intersubjectivity."
- mindbase source: github.com/mindbeam/mindbase

Entrepreneur in Residence - PIF.vc
Role | 2020-23 | status: shipped
Technical due diligence across a venture portfolio: product architecture,
scalability, engineering review, and vetting of physics-based claims.

The 7 Tiers of Sensemaking
Writing | 2019 | status: shipped
Six hundred years of information technology, and a seven-tier model of how
shared understanding degrades at scale.

CoC generator - a retrospective
Writing | 2017 | status: archived
I built a Code of Conduct generator in 2017. What would I cut today? The
retired artifact, annotated honestly.

HPTS gong show - unbase
Talk | 2017 | status: shipped
Five minutes at the invitation-only High Performance Transaction Systems
workshop. Slides on SlideShare.

Rust San Diego - co-organizer
Community | 2016-now | status: active
551 members, 116 events and counting, monthly for nearly a decade.

"Stop Making Dave Look Like an Asshole"
Writing | 2015 | status: shipped
Causal consistency taught through out-of-order office memos - then re-run
between Earth and Mars.

unbase
Research | 2015-18 | status: archived
Distributed-database research: strong causal consistency, coordination-free,
peer-to-peer in the browser. Presented at HPTS and Asilomar, 2017.
- unba.se: unba.se
- source: github.com/dnorman/unbase

RetailOps - co-founder & CTO
Role | 2011-19, 2023 | status: exited
Ground-up retail ERP: catalog, inventory, orders, pick-pack-ship,
multi-facility routing. >$1B GMV transacted. Successful exit via acquisition,
2023.
- >$1B gross merchandise value transacted on the ERP platform I co-founded
  (RetailOps, 2023)
- SCAMP protocol: github.com/gudtech/scamp

DrJays.com - lead architect
Role | 2004-11 | status: shipped
Custom ERP, storefront, and multi-facility fulfillment enabling $90M/yr gross
order volume and 200k sq ft of warehouse.

Mp3.com / Vivendi
Role | 2000-04 | status: shipped
World-scale media management and transcoding. Last engineer standing of a
staff of 100+.

Client work is described without naming the client or the end customer.