About

I’m Den Delimarsky. I am a Principal Product Engineer, currently working at Microsoft, where I help build developer tools and AI-powered experiences that make engineers more productive.

I started my engineering journey all the way back in the 90s, with a 386 box that was barely enough to run DOS games (I’ve upgraded since then). I’ve spent plenty of time writing code in Visual Basic 6.0 but for more than two decades now I am writing C# and Python. I’m learning C++, Rust, and Go when I need to really get out of my comfort zone.

I enjoy mixing product sense with putting hands on the keyboard and getting code out to the public - that’s the reason I steered my career towards developer tools.

What projects do you build and maintain? #

If you’re on Windows and felt like the caffeinate tool from macOS is missing, I built (and continue building) PowerToys Awake. I am also making my Windows configuration settings public to help Windows developers have a clean and robust dev box.

As a product manager (PM), I am also keenly aware of just how little comprehensive guidance there is on what it means to be a great PM, which led me to starting an open-source list of resources to help aspiring and more veteran PMs learn the craft.

I use a Stream Deck fairly regularly but wanted to make sure that I have full control of the device. That’s why I reverse engineered its USB protocol and built a .NET library around it.

Since 2020 I am running a podcast that provides a no-bullshit view on how to grow your career in tech. I’ve been fortunate to be joined by some excellent folks, such as Jeff Atwood, Sam Saccone, Gennadiy Korol, Chris Coyier, Camille Fournier, Charlie Kindel, and Mayuko Inoue. You can also check out the interviews on YouTube if video is your thing.

If you like Seinfeld, you might like his recent transition to tech.

I like blogging and people having their own personal spaces on the Internet outside the scope of big platforms (you can follow this blog in your RSS reader) so I started an aggregator of great personal blogs to follow.

I previously explored the Halo API fairly extensively, maintaining OpenSpartan - it was a hobby project that was all about tools to help analyze Halo data. I built a multi-tool for Halo Infinite players called OpenSpartan Workshop. It’s an unofficial companion app that stores data locally and allows anyone to query it from a SQLite database on their computer. The beauty of this approach is that it enables much richer insights than what the API provides out-of-the-box. You can see some of these experiments in a Jupyter notebook I put together. This application also uses a reference library I built - Grunt. It wraps the entirety of the Halo Infinite REST API surface. While the library itself is not public, I am sharing my reference design for posterity.

When I have time, I also speak at technical events and on podcasts. Those include:

• Earlier in 2024, I sat down with Kirupa to talk about what makes successful products successful.
• In 2024, I presented at Microsoft Build in Seattle on the topic of authentication brokers and how Microsoft Entra ID enables SSO scenarios for third-party customers.
• In 2023, I, along with my engineering manager counterpart, delivered a session at Microsoft Build to talk about how authentication brokers will change the security landscape for public client applications.
• In 2021, I was on Muko’s Corner talking about my long journey to Microsoft and more with Mayuko Inoue.
• In 2021 I joined the Coffee and Open Source podcast as a guest to talk about my career.
• I’ve presented on docs being a core part of the product at Open Source Summit North America in Vancouver, BC, Canada in August of 2018. You can also find a related lightning talk on YouTube.
• I talked about testing code with containers at the Global Azure Bootcamp in Vancouver, BC, Canada in April of 2018.
• In April of 2017 I’ve chatted on the MS Dev Show about documentation tooling and infrastructure.

Contact #

I love connecting with folks that read this blog or have anything to chat with me about. Send me a note: [email protected].

Identity #

This section serves as a point of reference for all identities that I own on the web. If you see someone acting as me on any other online asset that is not listed here, that is not me.

Disclaimer #

All opinions presented on this blog are my own and do not necessarily represent the views of my employer. It works the other way around too.