Turning thoughts
into things.

Hi, I'm Daniel, a product engineer from Nashville, TN with over 11 years of experience building web products across personal finance, edtech, and martech. Most recently at ClickFunnels, a B2B SaaS platform for sales funnels, websites, e-commerce, and email marketing, aimed primarily at small businesses, entrepreneurs, and creators.

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Elsewhere
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  • Ruby on Rails/
  • Turbo/
  • Stimulus/
  • React/
  • JavaScript/
  • TypeScript/
  • Web Components/
  • ViewComponent/
  • Inertia.js/
  • Tailwind CSS/
  • Design Systems/
  • Storybook/
  • Lookbook/
  • Stripe/
  • AI-assisted Engineering/
  • Claude Code/
  • ChatGPT/
  • MCP/
  • Skills/
  • Harness Engineering/
  • Observability/
01 / About
Daniel D. Pence
Daniel D. Pence — Nashville, TN

Full-stack breadth, frontend depth.

I'm a former financial analyst turned software engineer. I'm comfortable working through most all parts of the stack, but I'm most passionate about the frontend.

In 2014 I began teaching myself to code, and soon landed my first role as a frontend developer at Ramsey Solutions. I left in 2019 for VitalSource, building applications for students and educators, and since 2020 I've been at ClickFunnels — now a principal engineer.

Each role has widened what I work on and who I work with. At Ramsey I learned to build fast, reliable interfaces at scale. At VitalSource I learned to modernize legacy systems without breaking them. At ClickFunnels I've gone from building features to setting the frontend standards, design system, and practices that dozens of engineers rely on every day.

I love what I do. I love that I get to use both the logical and creative parts of my brain every day, that I get to build things that help people live better lives, and that I get to solve real business problems with technology.

Frontend architectureDesign systems0→1 productAgentic AI tooling
02 / Writing

Thinking out loud, in public.

All posts →
September 19, 2026
AI
How Agentic AI Changed the Way I Work

My honest take on building software with AI tooling after years of rolling my eyes at autocomplete.

May 29, 2021
Open source
Introducing storybook_rails

Releasing my first open source project — a Ruby DSL that brings Storybook's component-driven workflow to native Rails partials, no ViewComponent required.

October 24, 2019
Rails
Upgrading Rails: Spelunking the Rails Code Base to Fix ActionMailer Test Failures

Taking a legacy Rails app from 4.2.11.1 to 5.2 and eventually 6.0 — and going into the framework source to understand why the mailer tests broke.

August 29, 2019
JavaScript
Removing Duplicate Strings From a JavaScript Array

A real-world problem from work, solved with modern JavaScript — and a look at why the obvious approach isn't always the right one.

August 21, 2019
Career
My Story: How I Became a Software Engineer

People often ask how I changed careers from finance to software engineering. The short answer is a little luck and a lot of hard work. This is the long one.

03 / Selected work

Things I've worked on recently.

ClickFunnels

A JavaScript SDK for AI Agents

Built a JavaScript SDK that enables native ClickFunnels checkout functionality to be embedded on custom HTML pages — then exposed those same capabilities to AI agents through skills and an MCP server.

ClickFunnels

Reduced friction where customers were dropping off

Led a new user experience improvement initiative across many of the core user flows throughout the ClickFunnels 2.0 platform.

ClickFunnels

In-house product tour system

Replaced third-party product tour system with an in-house solution, saving five figures annually in vendor costs.

ClickFunnels

Company-wide design system

Created and maintained the component library used across the ClickFunnels 2.0 platform, spanning 220+ PRs from 2022 to 2026.

04 / Experience

A track record of success.

  1. 04/2022 — Present
    ClickFunnels
    Principal Software Engineer

    Trusted to lead several of the company's highest-stakes initiatives, including a JavaScript checkout SDK, the rescue of a stalled workflow-builder rebuild, and a company-wide rebrand, while continuing to ship product work.

  2. 11/2020 — 04/2022
    ClickFunnels
    Senior Software Engineer, Team Lead

    Established the frontend architecture, patterns, and shared component library for ClickFunnels 2.0. Mentored five engineers. Promoted to Principal on architecture and technical leadership impact.

  3. 02/2019 — 11/2020
    VitalSource
    Intermediate Software Engineer

    Public-facing Rails and React applications, balancing new product work with legacy modernization. Led a critical Rails 4.2 → 5.2.4 upgrade and introduced Cypress, ESLint and Prettier to the team's practice.

  4. 03/2017 — 02/2019
    Ramsey Solutions
    Frontend Developer

    Built the high-traffic Investing, Mortgage and Mortgage Payoff calculators. Co-led the internal frontend onboarding course, served on the interview team, and contributed to the Gazelle Design System.

  5. 08/2015 — 03/2017
    Ramsey Solutions
    Associate Frontend Developer

    Maintained internal and external Rails applications, built marketing landing pages, and contributed product ideas that helped grow the Real Estate ELP.

  6. 04/2009 — 08/2015
    Edo Interactive
    Financial Analyst

    Reduced card and ACH fraud across a prepaid portfolio, then grew into a finance role under the Controller. Taught myself SQL to get at the data directly — which is what started the move into engineering.

  7. 2004 — 2008
    Middle Tennessee State University
    BBA, Entrepreneurship

    The business and entrepreneurship background still shapes how I weigh technical decisions against customer and business outcomes.

05 / What others say

In the words of my peers.

Recommendations on LinkedIn →
  1. 01
    Teaches, not just tells

    The person teammates brought problems to — and left understanding the issue, not just holding an answer.

    — Jason Jarrett, former teammate
  2. 02
    Design instincts engineers rarely have

    Complex problems delivered simple, intuitive and highly interactive. Vouched for by a designer who shipped alongside me.

    — Daniel Divney, Principal Product Designer
  3. 03
    The one you hand the critical thing

    Sifts through noise, sets the standard others follow, and gets the crucial project over the line.

    — Josh Kennedy & John Sloan, former teammates
It's rare to work with engineers like Daniel that have such exceptional design and UX instincts. It was a pleasure to collaborate with him and deliver experiences that solved complex problems in a simple, intuitive and highly interactive way. Daniel truly is a master of his craft and good fun to work with!
Daniel Divney
Principal Product Designer, B2B SaaS & complex technical products · worked with Daniel on the same team
Daniel's impact on our engineering team was evident — his code contributions, design documentation, product demonstrations, and technical discussions were always top tier. If there was ever a question about how something worked or how something needed to be implemented, he was one of only a few guys you went to. He had a way of helping you understand the issue, not just providing an answer.
Jason Jarrett
Software Developer · worked with Daniel on the same team
Daniel is a rock-solid engineer with excellent instincts. I admire his ability to sift through noise and deliver with excellence. He consistently improves not only the products he works on, but his own skills as well, stretching himself and encouraging others to do the same. He's steady, trustworthy, and practical, and would be an asset to any engineering team.
Josh Kennedy
Full-Stack Engineer & Product Designer · worked with Daniel on the same team
Working with Daniel was a blast! He is very sharp, and learns very quickly. After having been at Ramsey a fairly short period of time he was already setting standards for front end development that the rest of the company aspired to. When a crucial new project was spun up on another team, and they needed a top notch full stack developer to get it over the line, Daniel was their man.
John Sloan
Staff Software Engineer, XOi Technologies · worked with Daniel on the same team
06 / Let's talk

Let's build something.

If you're working on something interesting — or stuck on something hard — I'd like to hear about it.

Send me a message →LinkedInGitHub