Lawrence Plante · Mount Dora, FL · Open to remote (US)
Five years running my own software company. Now I build for yours.
I founded Dark Oak Studios and shipped two Ripple Foundation grant-funded platforms on the XRP Ledger, including a 100+ endpoint API product delivered with a senior distributed team. I write TypeScript, React, Python, and PHP, and I've owned every part of the lifecycle: specs, code, QA, hiring, funding, and delivery.
$250K
in Ripple Foundation grants, won and delivered
$6M+
on-chain trading volume, fully organic
100+
endpoint API platform shipped
5 yrs
founder and technical lead
Selected work
Most of my founder-era code is in private repos, so each project is written up as a case study with verifiable numbers. Repo access can be arranged for interview processes, the same way our grant funder reviewed the work.
Nexus
100+ endpoints · Laravel core · Unity C# SDK
Nexus
A 100+ endpoint API platform for Web3 rewards, commerce, and event-driven payouts
Grant-funded infrastructure platform on the XRP Ledger: reward distribution, in-game commerce, and payment bridges, delivered by a senior team I hired and directed.
Founder, product & technical lead
Read the case study
StaxBacktester
Options-signal analytics and backtesting for a live Discord trading workflow
Solo-built fintech platform: parses Discord trade alerts into structured data, models P&L after fees, and backtests exit strategies to find where the edge actually is.
Personal project · all my own code
Read the case studyJunction
$100K grant · XLS-20 pioneer · first XUMM-in-Unity
Junction
The Web3 gaming platform that put NFT and token mechanics inside real games
Dark Oak's first grant-funded product: a gaming platform bridging traditional game mechanics with on-chain rewards, and home to two XRPL firsts.
Founder & developer (~25% of shipped code)
Read the case study
Bar inventory & shift handoff
A PWA that replaced paper par sheets and group-text handoffs at a working bar
PIN sign-in, par-status color coding, and end-of-night state logging, built for the actual 2 a.m. close. Two full versions shipped.
Personal project · all my own code
Read the case study
Level 8 digital menu
The guest menu is the surface. The staff admin behind it is the product.
React + TypeScript menu with a Cognito-gated admin where managers change items, prices, and availability in seconds, no deploy required. Live in production at the venue today.
Personal project · all my own code
Read the case studyAlso built
FridgeStock
Self-hosted pantry PWA in a TypeScript monorepo: Fastify + Drizzle API, installable React front end, ZXing barcode scanning with Open Food Facts lookups, and Claude API meal suggestions from expiring items. Vitest suites across workspaces.
WAX NFT project
Co-built and launched a blockchain NFT project in summer 2021, before Dark Oak existed. Roughly $30K personal revenue in one summer.
Client work
Designed and built a teaching portfolio site for an educator's job search, delivered end to end from content to hosting.
Technical skills
Everything here is backed by shipped work you can see above.
Languages
- TypeScript
- JavaScript
- Python
- PHP
- C#
- SQL
- HTML & CSS
Frontend
- React
- Next.js
- Vite
- Tailwind CSS
- PWA development
Backend & APIs
- Node.js
- Laravel (MVC)
- FastAPI
- Fastify
- REST API design
- JWT auth
Data
- PostgreSQL
- SQLite
- Supabase
- Drizzle ORM
- SQLAlchemy
- Prisma
Cloud & Infra
- AWS (EC2, S3, IAM, Amplify)
- Docker & Compose
- Railway
- VPS management
- cron automation
AI & LLM
- Anthropic API
- OpenAI API
- prompt engineering
- production AI features
Game & Web3
- Unity C# SDK work
- XRPL
- wallet integration
- tokenomics
Practices
- Technical specs
- QA & release testing
- Vitest
- Git & PR workflow
- developer docs
About
I started Dark Oak Studios in 2021 and ran it for five years: a distributed senior team, roughly half a million dollars in lifetime capital, and two consecutive Ripple Foundation grants won and delivered. I ran the hiring (300+ applicants, about 60 interviews), the funder relationship, the specs, the QA, and a good share of the code.
Something I'll tell you before you ask: on Nexus, my senior engineers were faster at raw implementation than I was, so I operated as product and technical lead. Every spec, every QA pass, and every hire was mine; most of the core code wasn't. My personal projects are the reverse. StaxBacktester, FridgeStock, the menu system, and the bar app are all my own code, end to end.
In 2026 I committed to the software side full time. I'm looking for full-stack development or technical product roles on a remote team that wants someone who has owned the whole lifecycle. B.S. in Business Management from Florida State with a CS minor and about 50 credit hours of computer science coursework.
Let's talk.
Email is the fastest way to reach me. If you're hiring for a developer seat, grab the developer resume; for product or technical program roles, there's a version for that too.