Dan Mills

Built and managed a 10-person cross-functional org spanning product, frontend, integrations, and developer experience; owned roadmap, budget, and hiring.
Launched the Avail blockchain (Jul 2024), a high-throughput, cryptographically verified data network powering rollup ecosystems.
Led development of Avail Nexus, enabling apps to access liquidity and functionality across 13+ blockchains via SDKs and widgets.
Co-led Arcana Network acquisition to strengthen Nexus backend and accelerate mainnet launch (Q4 2025).
Drove developer adoption through SDKs (Rust, JS, Python, Go) and hundreds of partnerships including Succinct, Sophon, Lens, S+T and zkSync.

Led identity verification platform enabling sellers to onboard and transact across Payments, Banking, and Payroll.
Launched document-based verification (ID + selfie) and expanded automated onboarding to new markets and entity types.
Modernized platform architecture, cutting new market-launch integration time from months to days.

Founded a cooking makerspace featured by CNN and the San Francisco Chronicle; launched and grew the business to profitability within a year.

Defined and prototyped new tools for content creators through user research with educators and digital communities.

Launched Mozilla Persona, a decentralized web sign-in system; owned concept, strategy, and roadmap, growing adoption to thousands of sites and expanding the team to 20+.
Collaborated with Firefox engineering to integrate Firefox Accounts directly into the browser, unifying Sync, services login, and Persona authentication.
Directed user research, prototypes, and usability testing to define developer and user experiences for secure, privacy-preserving identity across the web.
Partnered with carriers to integrate IDs and billing into Firefox OS and its Apps Marketplace.

Founding member of Mozilla Labs, where I designed and led development of Weave, the end-to-end-encrypted sync system that graduated into Firefox Sync.
Delivered core Firefox improvements, including a full revamp of the bookmarks and history storage system using SQLite, and automation tools for customized builds.

Duke University — BS Computer Science, 2000