Daniel C.

Expert-Vetted - the top 1% of talent on Upwork. Caltech PhD turned software architect with 25+ years of experience, and founder of Element26 (element26.net), a Dallas-based technology consulting firm. My specialty is taking niche projects that require extensive thought and complexity and crafting a simple, efficient, and elegant solution. Clients range from Fortune 500 companies (Ralph Lauren, AbbVie) to universities and education platforms (UCLA, Coursera) to healthcare organizations. What I build: production-grade backend systems, REST API design and integration (Stripe, Twilio, SendGrid, Salesforce, Google), ETL and healthcare data pipelines, advanced SQL and database architecture (MS SQL Server, MySQL/MariaDB, SQLite), process automation, and simulation modeling - in Python, TypeScript/Node.js, PHP, and Bash, across macOS, Linux, and Windows. Before consulting full-time, I spent nearly a decade at AbbVie in pharmaceutical process chemistry, where I'm a named inventor on a patent behind a marketed hepatitis C cure. I bring that same rigor - hypothesis, measurement, verification - to every system I ship. I also maintain open-source projects in the home automation ecosystem (Node-RED, Homebridge, MQTT, ESP8266 firmware), and my product MSG Viewer for Outlook was CNET's #1 Mac Email Utility, used by Fortune 500 enterprises worldwide. If your project doesn't fit a template, that's usually where I come in.