Density DAW - Professional DJ Software

Role: Software Engineer → Technical Lead (3 years) • Scale: ~2,500 DAU • Users: Pro DJs (Burning Man, EDC)

Overview

Joined to evolve a DJ-focused DAW that pairs live performance workflows with pro-grade audio processing. Led the shift to Windows alongside macOS, tightened reliability, and sped up delivery.

Built a unified Mac/Windows codebase, reworked threading/interop, and delivered a real-time engine that holds sub-10ms latency under load. Added LUFS metering and pro-grade effects, production observability, and CI/CD with signing/notarization and Windows installers.

Impact

Crash rate down 40% (5% → 3%); releases from monthly to ~1.5 weeks; Windows launch achieved platform parity and supported ~2,500 daily DJs.

How it works

Real-time: Lock-free audio/UI messaging, preallocated buffers, dedicated thread pools.
DSP/effects: BS.1770-4 LUFS, Pioneer-style filters, fractional delay, multi-band limiting with artifact-free switching.
Reliability & rollout: Sentry + structured logging, feature flags, graceful degradation.
Delivery: GitHub Actions for Mac/Windows, universal binaries, signing/notarization, Windows installer, semantic versioning.

Leadership

Grew from contributor to lead for the cross-platform port and audio/DSP architecture; set patterns to avoid platform-specific forks; built onboarding/interview loops and mentored the team through the launch.