I'm Dasco.-image

I'm Dasco.

I'm an Australian Sydney based Software Engineering Leader with over 20 years experience in the software industry and specialisations in HR Tech, Travel Tech, Insurance, Gaming and Finance. I'm a big believer that creating well-engineered software solutions is primarily a people problem, hence my philosophy that great tech requires the right people operating in the right culture.

In my free time time, you can catch me playing tennis, coaching badminton, or simply hanging out with the wife and kids.

about-me-image

About me

Hi! I'm Dasco, Mark Dasco to be exact, but everyone just calls me by my last name - Dasco. I'm a software engineering leader with over 20 years in the Software Industry. During my time, I've evolved from cutting code (which I still do in my spare time) towards building awesome engineering cultures. Whether it's small pizza-sized teams or multiple teams spanning a department, my core beliefs endure: culture eats strategy for breakfast, quality matters and if nothing changes - nothing changes.

  • Location:Sydney, NSW Australia
  • Nationality:Australian
  • Interests:Tennis, Badminton, Chess, Poker
  • Study:University of Technology Sydney
  • Employment:Looking for next opportunity

Education

Bachelors Degree in Software Engineering Diploma in Engineering Practice

University of Technology SydneyJun 2004

Learnt the difference between being just a coder vs being an engineer, to create software that endures!

Bachelor of Business in Finance

University of Technology SydneyJun 2004

Learnt all about applied finance as it relates to the corporate world. Didn't end up using it :-).

Recent experiences

Head of Engineering / Engineering Manager

Elmo SoftwareSep 2019 - Aug 2023

Oversee strategic and operational initiatives for ELMO's R&D Engineering team, consisting of 80 - 90 onshore and offshore engineers distributed across 12+ scrum teams. Concurrently acted as an Engineering Manager for 2 scrum teams. Accountable for rapid and sustainable, technical delivery of outcomes alongside contemporary engineering processes and practices. Setup the engineering department to operate at scale in terms of people, process and technology.

Head of Software Development and Applications

nib TravelJun 2016 - Sep 2019

Management oversight across 4 development teams and an application support team, consisting of 25-30 Permanent Headcount and pool of contractors (5-10). Motivate teams and create a strong culture of engineering excellence and continuous improvement. Responsible for the development and execution of 3-5 year cloud-first strategic direction. Act in a technical and process leadership role, mentoring and coaching teams, leaders and individuals towards successful delivery.

Software Development Manager

World Nomads GroupApr 2014 – Jun 2016

Adopted and implemented agile development best-practices across several development teams. Enacted CI/CD and Continous Improvement, cultivated product and technical backlogs, whilst also addressing technical debt. Maintained a continued hands on approach with key responsibility collaborating with development teams and chief architect to validate and approve designs and implementation ensuring they fall in-line with the overall solution and enterprise architecture.

Team Lead Software Developer

World Nomads GroupApr – Apr 2014

Responsible for teams delivering high quality code and setting the standard for development teams to follow. Assessing new technologies and providing technical leadership when necessary. Key technologies involved: .Net 4.0, C# ASP .net MVC 3.5, ASP .net, Entity Framework, Angular JS\, Selenium, Sass, NUnit, Unity 2.0, TFS 2013, Jira, Confluence, Sql Server 2014 Database, Reporting Services, Analysis Services, Octopus Deploy, RabbitMq, M-Files, Puppet Enterprise.

Skills

Leadership
Engineering Strategy
Scale
Thought Leadership
Technical Skills
Distributed Architectures
.net C# Development
Node/React
Methodologies
Scrum
Kanban
Waterfall
Communication
Coaching & Mentoring
Inspiration
Facilitation

Check out some of my experiences, highlights and philosophy

DevOps for the win
Leaders create leaders
Data-informed Cultures
Developer Productivity
Microservice Migrations
Offshore Dev Hubs
Budgets and Cents
Employee Experience
Badminton Coaching
Organisational Redesigns
QHPonds-Tennis

Dasco has been one of the most influential and inspiring mentors at ELMO. As Head of Engineering, he's overseen a complete transformation of ELMO's R&D department with strong focus on high quality engineering. Following his vision, our autonomous teams went from monolith to microservices, introduced trunk-based development, upgraded legacy systems and built critical platform tools that will service our R&D for years to come. He is an excellent communicator and a patient listener. His knack for bringing teams together has seen our department overcome many challenges. He introduced OKRs at ELMO to achieve sustained and measurable outcomes. He's proven to be a capable, versatile and transformational leader and his tenacity and vision can take any organization to new heights.

-- Faraz Ali Zuberi (Solutions Architect - ELMO Software)

My career has been closely intertwined with Dasco’s. I’ve worked closely with him in a number of roles over the years and witnessed his growth into an astute, practical and down-to-earth technology leader. He is as comfortable guiding and debating architecture, as he is presenting fearlessly to the C suite, as he is building up talented teams. Definitely one of a kind.

-- Dinesh Gurram (Head of Engineering - Evermed)

Dasco has demonstrated exemplary leadership as the Head of Development at ELMO. His expansive knowledge base and profound experience in engineering have been instrumental in delivering tremendous benefits to our team. During the scale-up phase, his significant contributions to research and development have played a crucial role in shaping the direction and success of the company. As an adept and humble leader, Dasco has nurtured and grown a cadre of reliable leaders within the team, fostering an environment of collaboration and excellence. By implementing robust engineering practices and processes, he guided us seamlessly through the critical 1 to N growth phase at ELMO. It was an honour to work alongside him on this journey, witnessing firsthand his impact on our organisation. His leadership continues to resonate as a hallmark of professionalism and innovation.

-- Samuel Sun (CTO - ELMO Software)

Working closely with Dasco as a Platform Product Manager, I've consistently admired his exceptional leadership and strong dedication to people and processes. Dasco brings together strategic vision and hands-on technical expertise. He's committed to innovation and streamlined processes, evident in his work on product development and process improvements. He is not afraid to ask tough questions, guiding both product and engineering team to innovate within constraints. Besides his engineering expertise, Dasco excels in focusing on people. He creates a positive work environment, motivating team members and always creating learning opportunities. His mentoring really promotes professional growth and a culture of ongoing improvement.

-- Tiffany Ye (Platform Product Manager)

Get in touch.

Best way to get in touch is to reach out via email!

Github
mldasco