Meet the 2024 Dagger Commanders
September 25, 2024
Sep 25, 2024
Miranda Carter
A few weeks ago, we proudly launched the Dagger Commanders program. Our community has always been the driving force behind Dagger’s success, and today, we’re thrilled to introduce our first batch of Dagger Commanders.
These individuals are not only some of the most knowledgeable and experienced users of Dagger, but they have repeatedly gone out of their way to grow the community and support new users, whether on Discord, in person, at meetups, or at industry events. You may recognize their names, as you’ve seen them answering questions, offering guidance, or helping debug complex issues.
The Dagger Commanders embody everything that makes a great community leader, and we are honored that they have answered the call.
Without further ado, I’m happy to introduce the 2024 Dagger Commanders!
2024 Dagger Commanders
Ali AKCA – Freelancer / Consultant (.aweris on Discord)
While visiting our booth at KubeCon EU, Ali overheard a person’s question and started enthusiastically sharing his Dagger examples with passersby; as more people kept approaching, he kept answering question after question—you’d think he was part of the Dagger team!
Ali’s passion for Dagger and eagerness to share his knowledge with others is infectious. Since joining the Dagger community, he’s always been quick to test new features and provide valuable feedback to improve the experience for everyone.
We’re excited to see him share more of his expertise at upcoming conferences and Dagger Community Calls.
His advice for new users: “ Get involved with the Dagger community. There are amazing people who can help you succeed.”
Batuhan Apaydın – Platform Engineer, Trendyol (developerguy on Discord)
Batuhan’s passion for making Dagger as widely adopted as Docker is infectious. He was one of the first Daggernauts to message me about speaking at a conference on Dagger, and he hasn’t stopped spreading the word since! From the İstanbul Gophers Meetup to DevOpsDays İstanbul, Batuhan has essentially launched his own Dagger roadshow across Turkey, and we couldn’t be more excited.
He has made numerous contributions to the Daggerverse, improving workflows and driving innovation. We’re excited to work with him to bring even more Dagger Meetups to İstanbul, and hopefully beyond.
His advice: “ Keep calm and Dagger!”
Diego Ciangottini – Technologist, INFN (dciangot on Discord)
Calling all Data Scientists! If you’re a Data Scientist, or play one on TV, Diego is the Daggernaut you need to meet. He bridges the gap between scientific communities and Dagger by sharing real-world examples through his live-streaming series.
As part of his Dagger exploration, Diego has also integrated an end-to-end test suite for Kubernetes using Dagger, which has gotten rave reviews from the many Daggernauts seeking best practices with K8s.
His advice: “ Start with simple CI/testing implementations, feel the power of it, and then extend to any workflow that makes sense to you.”
Emmanuel Sibanda – Founder/Software Engineer, AdAlchemyAI (emmzw on Discord)
His demos are some of my favorites to watch. Emmanuel takes highly technical concepts and breaks them down in a way that anyone can understand. He began with a proof of concept (POC) using Dagger and was quickly drawn to its flexibility, which led him to push the envelope of what can be done with Dagger, demonstrating that Dagger can be used to automate far more than just CI with his demo of an AI-driven weekly financial pipeline. He showed how agents use Dagger modules to fetch, filter, categorize, and analyze transaction data, ultimately delivering personalized financial advice via SMS or email.
We can’t wait to see what new and unique Dagger use cases he can bring to the Community.
His advice: “ The more you use Dagger, the more you appreciate its value.”
Jean-Christophe Sirot – Staff Engineer, Decathlon (jice_ on Discord)
If you ever find yourself in the ‘Dagger and Java Discord channel, you’ll likely catch Jean-Christophe discussing how to bring the experimental Java SDK to life. We met in person a few months ago at the Dagger Meetup in Paris, and it was incredible to see how quickly he grasped the (then-new) Dagger Module concept and ran with it.
Jean-Christophe works with pipelines in his day job and is also a co-organizer of the CNCF Paris Meetup group and KCD France. We’re honored to have someone with his expertise join our community and are excited for the rest of our members to learn from him.
His advice: “ Experiment with simple projects, read the documentation because it’s really well done, check out the existing modules developed by others, and don’t hesitate to ask questions on the Discord server.”
Kambui Nurse – Staff Engineer Innovation, Marsh McLennan (siafu7795 on Discord)
During a recent community call, viewers praised Kambui’s demo of the Self Corrective Agentic Workflow Powered by Dagger, saying, ‘I like the way you explain’ and ‘Very impressive, Kambui, can’t wait to see what you do next.’ That perfectly sums up why we’re so excited to have him as a Dagger Commander.
Kambui is at the forefront of pushing Dagger to its limits for AI use cases, and we’re honored that he’s sharing his journey with us and the broader community.
He believes Dagger represents a paradigm shift for developers and encourages newcomers to “ Dream big—you can do anything with it!”.
Kasper Hermansen – Platform Engineer, Lunar (kjuulh on Discord)
If you’re a Rust enthusiast, you need to meet Kasper. You’ll often find him in the ‘Dagger and Rust’ Discord channel, discussing the experimental Rust SDK he’s working on.
Kasper started using Dagger as soon as it was released and is particularly passionate about programmatic pipelines and deployments. He channeled that excitement into building an entire platform on top of Dagger at Lunar. Throughout his project, he has been generous with feedback for our engineering team and is always quick to test new features when we ask.
His advice: “ Start simple. Dagger has excellent quickstarts on building sample code projects, or you can explore how the different SDK examples work. Once you get familiar with the syntax and how it fits into your project, try building your own module for a specific task, publish it, and use it.”
Márk Sági-Kazár – Head of OSS, OpenMeter (sagikazarmark on Discord)
If there was an image search for a Dagger ‘ride or die,’ Mark’s picture would likely appear first. Since the project’s announcement, Mark has been a vocal member of the Dagger community and quickly became one the most enthusiastic advocates of Code>YAML. He has shared his experiences of integrating Dagger at OpenMeter, demoed new ideas during Community calls, shared his Go module with the world, and presented at industry events.
While we deeply value his external advocacy, the feedback he has given our team has been even more valuable. As someone always on the bleeding edge of Dagger usage, Mark often encounters roadblocks and bugs before anyone else, and he consistently takes the time to report these issues with patience and grace.
His advice: “Go through the quickstart. Then grab a Dockerfile of yours and try to rewrite it to Dagger...”
Nipuna Perera – Director of Cloud Engineering, Fidelity Investments (mangocrysis on Discord)
Nipuna is one of the most active Daggernauts, and tackles some of the most challenging corporate use cases—but he never gives up! He’s consistently created GitHub issues with feature requests tailored to users working with Dagger within corporate networks, helping us understand the enterprise blockers Daggernauts face.
Thanks to his direct feedback and enterprise insights, we can triage these needs more efficiently. Nipuna believes that Dagger will soon become as integral to CI/CD as containers are to have become to modern infrastructure, and he’s working closely with us as an enterprise user to make that vision a reality.
If you’re considering using Dagger in a complex enterprise environment, Nipuna is a great person to connect with. He regularly participates in the Dagger Discord community, sharing insights and answering questions based on his experience at Fidelity Investments.
His advice: “ Join the Discord server. Start by creating a simple Dagger module to solve a problem you have today. Dagger is excellent for incrementally adding features to a module. The Dagger team and other users are highly active on Discord and will help you if you run into blockers.”
Nuno Ribeiro – DevOps Engineer, Cleva Solutions (nfr_ribeiro on Discord)
Nuno envisions a future where pipelines can be managed programmatically, free from the traditional CI/CD headaches.
He first discovered Dagger through the Changelog Podcast and was immediately drawn to the concept of running pipelines as code. Once hooked, Nuno made it his mission to spread Dagger’s ideas across Portugal. This week alone, he’s speaking at both DevOps Portugal and KCD Portugal!
When he’s not submitting CFPs, Nuno is busy integrating Dagger into the internal tooling at Cleva Solutions, where he works. It’s great to see Commanders using Dagger in their day-to-day work, as it allows them to share tips and tricks with other enterprise users on the same path.
His advice: “ If you run into a problem, join the Discord community and share the issues you’re facing. There’s always someone ready to help you overcome the hurdles.”
Patrick Magee – Engineering Lead, LexisNexis Risk Solutions (delegate_ on Discord)
Patrick was drawn to Dagger after recognizing the limitations of traditional CI/CD pipelines, and quickly became convinced that Dagger would be a foundational tool for CI/CD workflows.
Since joining our community, he has eagerly jumped in to help users and engage in discussions on the Dagger Discord. In fact, I’m pretty sure he’s been at every Dagger Community call since he joined!
His proudest contributions include enhancing the Dagger experience for Windows OS users and developing the popular Dota2-helper project. But I truly appreciate the energy he brings to community calls and the various Discord threads.
His advice: “ Try to set aside your previous experiences with traditional CI platforms and Dockerfiles. Dagger introduces a new, programmable approach to CI/CD, so it’s crucial to embrace this shift rather than fall back on old habits. By doing so, you’ll be better prepared to fully understand the innovative concepts and flexibility that Dagger offers.”
Paul Dragoonis - CTO, ByteHire (pauldragoonis on Discord)
Where are the PHP fans? If you love PHP, you’ve got Paul to thank for leading the development of the experimental PHP SDK. Not only has he dedicated time and effort to the SDK, but he’s also spoken at events like the PHP UK Conference and Web Summer Camp to showcase the benefits of Dagger to the PHP community. He is known for being passionate and outspoken, always pushing us to be better.
He’s known for telling the world, “Burn your YAML. Build more code.” — We love it!.
His advice: “ Just dive in. It’s easier to swim in Dagger-land than in a big pot of YAML soup.”
Peter Jausovec – Senior Principal Platform Advocate, solo.io (.peterj on Discord)
I first came across Peter during his live stream where he tried out Dagger for the first time. It was a fantastic watch because it provided our team with valuable feedback that helped improve the developer experience for the whole community.
Since then, Peter has regularly joined community calls to share tips and tricks, and he’s even built a Dagger module for Envoy Proxy. We’re excited to see him continue sharing his insights with fellow Daggernauts!
His advice: “ Take one of your existing scripts, refer to the Dagger docs, and convert it into Dagger functions.”
Thanabodee Charoenpiriyakij - Software Engineer, LINE Company (Thailand) ( wingyplus on Discord)
Thanabodee created the experimental Elixir SDK, opening the door for Elixir enthusiasts to experience the power of Dagger in their preferred language.
When he’s not working on the SDK or expanding his collection of Dagger modules, you’ll find him on various Dagger Discord channels helping other users, or on GitHub providing feedback on the latest PRs.
In his next endeavor, he’s excited to use Dagger to manage Kubernetes configurations, experimenting with mutating and merging configurations using Dagger modules as a framework, and sharing his insights with fellow Daggernauts.
His advice: “ pick up the SDK for your favorite language, experiment with existing use cases, and then try using Dagger on a small project to see how it can help you.”
Want to learn more from these Dagger Commanders, or ask them to join one of your events to speak about Dagger? Join our Discord and say hi!
Do you have what it takes to be a Dagger Commander? Nominate yourself or a fellow Daggernaut for the 2025 batch here! If you have any questions about the program, feel free to reach out to me (handle: mirandacarter) on Discord.
A few weeks ago, we proudly launched the Dagger Commanders program. Our community has always been the driving force behind Dagger’s success, and today, we’re thrilled to introduce our first batch of Dagger Commanders.
These individuals are not only some of the most knowledgeable and experienced users of Dagger, but they have repeatedly gone out of their way to grow the community and support new users, whether on Discord, in person, at meetups, or at industry events. You may recognize their names, as you’ve seen them answering questions, offering guidance, or helping debug complex issues.
The Dagger Commanders embody everything that makes a great community leader, and we are honored that they have answered the call.
Without further ado, I’m happy to introduce the 2024 Dagger Commanders!
2024 Dagger Commanders
Ali AKCA – Freelancer / Consultant (.aweris on Discord)
While visiting our booth at KubeCon EU, Ali overheard a person’s question and started enthusiastically sharing his Dagger examples with passersby; as more people kept approaching, he kept answering question after question—you’d think he was part of the Dagger team!
Ali’s passion for Dagger and eagerness to share his knowledge with others is infectious. Since joining the Dagger community, he’s always been quick to test new features and provide valuable feedback to improve the experience for everyone.
We’re excited to see him share more of his expertise at upcoming conferences and Dagger Community Calls.
His advice for new users: “ Get involved with the Dagger community. There are amazing people who can help you succeed.”
Batuhan Apaydın – Platform Engineer, Trendyol (developerguy on Discord)
Batuhan’s passion for making Dagger as widely adopted as Docker is infectious. He was one of the first Daggernauts to message me about speaking at a conference on Dagger, and he hasn’t stopped spreading the word since! From the İstanbul Gophers Meetup to DevOpsDays İstanbul, Batuhan has essentially launched his own Dagger roadshow across Turkey, and we couldn’t be more excited.
He has made numerous contributions to the Daggerverse, improving workflows and driving innovation. We’re excited to work with him to bring even more Dagger Meetups to İstanbul, and hopefully beyond.
His advice: “ Keep calm and Dagger!”
Diego Ciangottini – Technologist, INFN (dciangot on Discord)
Calling all Data Scientists! If you’re a Data Scientist, or play one on TV, Diego is the Daggernaut you need to meet. He bridges the gap between scientific communities and Dagger by sharing real-world examples through his live-streaming series.
As part of his Dagger exploration, Diego has also integrated an end-to-end test suite for Kubernetes using Dagger, which has gotten rave reviews from the many Daggernauts seeking best practices with K8s.
His advice: “ Start with simple CI/testing implementations, feel the power of it, and then extend to any workflow that makes sense to you.”
Emmanuel Sibanda – Founder/Software Engineer, AdAlchemyAI (emmzw on Discord)
His demos are some of my favorites to watch. Emmanuel takes highly technical concepts and breaks them down in a way that anyone can understand. He began with a proof of concept (POC) using Dagger and was quickly drawn to its flexibility, which led him to push the envelope of what can be done with Dagger, demonstrating that Dagger can be used to automate far more than just CI with his demo of an AI-driven weekly financial pipeline. He showed how agents use Dagger modules to fetch, filter, categorize, and analyze transaction data, ultimately delivering personalized financial advice via SMS or email.
We can’t wait to see what new and unique Dagger use cases he can bring to the Community.
His advice: “ The more you use Dagger, the more you appreciate its value.”
Jean-Christophe Sirot – Staff Engineer, Decathlon (jice_ on Discord)
If you ever find yourself in the ‘Dagger and Java Discord channel, you’ll likely catch Jean-Christophe discussing how to bring the experimental Java SDK to life. We met in person a few months ago at the Dagger Meetup in Paris, and it was incredible to see how quickly he grasped the (then-new) Dagger Module concept and ran with it.
Jean-Christophe works with pipelines in his day job and is also a co-organizer of the CNCF Paris Meetup group and KCD France. We’re honored to have someone with his expertise join our community and are excited for the rest of our members to learn from him.
His advice: “ Experiment with simple projects, read the documentation because it’s really well done, check out the existing modules developed by others, and don’t hesitate to ask questions on the Discord server.”
Kambui Nurse – Staff Engineer Innovation, Marsh McLennan (siafu7795 on Discord)
During a recent community call, viewers praised Kambui’s demo of the Self Corrective Agentic Workflow Powered by Dagger, saying, ‘I like the way you explain’ and ‘Very impressive, Kambui, can’t wait to see what you do next.’ That perfectly sums up why we’re so excited to have him as a Dagger Commander.
Kambui is at the forefront of pushing Dagger to its limits for AI use cases, and we’re honored that he’s sharing his journey with us and the broader community.
He believes Dagger represents a paradigm shift for developers and encourages newcomers to “ Dream big—you can do anything with it!”.
Kasper Hermansen – Platform Engineer, Lunar (kjuulh on Discord)
If you’re a Rust enthusiast, you need to meet Kasper. You’ll often find him in the ‘Dagger and Rust’ Discord channel, discussing the experimental Rust SDK he’s working on.
Kasper started using Dagger as soon as it was released and is particularly passionate about programmatic pipelines and deployments. He channeled that excitement into building an entire platform on top of Dagger at Lunar. Throughout his project, he has been generous with feedback for our engineering team and is always quick to test new features when we ask.
His advice: “ Start simple. Dagger has excellent quickstarts on building sample code projects, or you can explore how the different SDK examples work. Once you get familiar with the syntax and how it fits into your project, try building your own module for a specific task, publish it, and use it.”
Márk Sági-Kazár – Head of OSS, OpenMeter (sagikazarmark on Discord)
If there was an image search for a Dagger ‘ride or die,’ Mark’s picture would likely appear first. Since the project’s announcement, Mark has been a vocal member of the Dagger community and quickly became one the most enthusiastic advocates of Code>YAML. He has shared his experiences of integrating Dagger at OpenMeter, demoed new ideas during Community calls, shared his Go module with the world, and presented at industry events.
While we deeply value his external advocacy, the feedback he has given our team has been even more valuable. As someone always on the bleeding edge of Dagger usage, Mark often encounters roadblocks and bugs before anyone else, and he consistently takes the time to report these issues with patience and grace.
His advice: “Go through the quickstart. Then grab a Dockerfile of yours and try to rewrite it to Dagger...”
Nipuna Perera – Director of Cloud Engineering, Fidelity Investments (mangocrysis on Discord)
Nipuna is one of the most active Daggernauts, and tackles some of the most challenging corporate use cases—but he never gives up! He’s consistently created GitHub issues with feature requests tailored to users working with Dagger within corporate networks, helping us understand the enterprise blockers Daggernauts face.
Thanks to his direct feedback and enterprise insights, we can triage these needs more efficiently. Nipuna believes that Dagger will soon become as integral to CI/CD as containers are to have become to modern infrastructure, and he’s working closely with us as an enterprise user to make that vision a reality.
If you’re considering using Dagger in a complex enterprise environment, Nipuna is a great person to connect with. He regularly participates in the Dagger Discord community, sharing insights and answering questions based on his experience at Fidelity Investments.
His advice: “ Join the Discord server. Start by creating a simple Dagger module to solve a problem you have today. Dagger is excellent for incrementally adding features to a module. The Dagger team and other users are highly active on Discord and will help you if you run into blockers.”
Nuno Ribeiro – DevOps Engineer, Cleva Solutions (nfr_ribeiro on Discord)
Nuno envisions a future where pipelines can be managed programmatically, free from the traditional CI/CD headaches.
He first discovered Dagger through the Changelog Podcast and was immediately drawn to the concept of running pipelines as code. Once hooked, Nuno made it his mission to spread Dagger’s ideas across Portugal. This week alone, he’s speaking at both DevOps Portugal and KCD Portugal!
When he’s not submitting CFPs, Nuno is busy integrating Dagger into the internal tooling at Cleva Solutions, where he works. It’s great to see Commanders using Dagger in their day-to-day work, as it allows them to share tips and tricks with other enterprise users on the same path.
His advice: “ If you run into a problem, join the Discord community and share the issues you’re facing. There’s always someone ready to help you overcome the hurdles.”
Patrick Magee – Engineering Lead, LexisNexis Risk Solutions (delegate_ on Discord)
Patrick was drawn to Dagger after recognizing the limitations of traditional CI/CD pipelines, and quickly became convinced that Dagger would be a foundational tool for CI/CD workflows.
Since joining our community, he has eagerly jumped in to help users and engage in discussions on the Dagger Discord. In fact, I’m pretty sure he’s been at every Dagger Community call since he joined!
His proudest contributions include enhancing the Dagger experience for Windows OS users and developing the popular Dota2-helper project. But I truly appreciate the energy he brings to community calls and the various Discord threads.
His advice: “ Try to set aside your previous experiences with traditional CI platforms and Dockerfiles. Dagger introduces a new, programmable approach to CI/CD, so it’s crucial to embrace this shift rather than fall back on old habits. By doing so, you’ll be better prepared to fully understand the innovative concepts and flexibility that Dagger offers.”
Paul Dragoonis - CTO, ByteHire (pauldragoonis on Discord)
Where are the PHP fans? If you love PHP, you’ve got Paul to thank for leading the development of the experimental PHP SDK. Not only has he dedicated time and effort to the SDK, but he’s also spoken at events like the PHP UK Conference and Web Summer Camp to showcase the benefits of Dagger to the PHP community. He is known for being passionate and outspoken, always pushing us to be better.
He’s known for telling the world, “Burn your YAML. Build more code.” — We love it!.
His advice: “ Just dive in. It’s easier to swim in Dagger-land than in a big pot of YAML soup.”
Peter Jausovec – Senior Principal Platform Advocate, solo.io (.peterj on Discord)
I first came across Peter during his live stream where he tried out Dagger for the first time. It was a fantastic watch because it provided our team with valuable feedback that helped improve the developer experience for the whole community.
Since then, Peter has regularly joined community calls to share tips and tricks, and he’s even built a Dagger module for Envoy Proxy. We’re excited to see him continue sharing his insights with fellow Daggernauts!
His advice: “ Take one of your existing scripts, refer to the Dagger docs, and convert it into Dagger functions.”
Thanabodee Charoenpiriyakij - Software Engineer, LINE Company (Thailand) ( wingyplus on Discord)
Thanabodee created the experimental Elixir SDK, opening the door for Elixir enthusiasts to experience the power of Dagger in their preferred language.
When he’s not working on the SDK or expanding his collection of Dagger modules, you’ll find him on various Dagger Discord channels helping other users, or on GitHub providing feedback on the latest PRs.
In his next endeavor, he’s excited to use Dagger to manage Kubernetes configurations, experimenting with mutating and merging configurations using Dagger modules as a framework, and sharing his insights with fellow Daggernauts.
His advice: “ pick up the SDK for your favorite language, experiment with existing use cases, and then try using Dagger on a small project to see how it can help you.”
Want to learn more from these Dagger Commanders, or ask them to join one of your events to speak about Dagger? Join our Discord and say hi!
Do you have what it takes to be a Dagger Commander? Nominate yourself or a fellow Daggernaut for the 2025 batch here! If you have any questions about the program, feel free to reach out to me (handle: mirandacarter) on Discord.
A few weeks ago, we proudly launched the Dagger Commanders program. Our community has always been the driving force behind Dagger’s success, and today, we’re thrilled to introduce our first batch of Dagger Commanders.
These individuals are not only some of the most knowledgeable and experienced users of Dagger, but they have repeatedly gone out of their way to grow the community and support new users, whether on Discord, in person, at meetups, or at industry events. You may recognize their names, as you’ve seen them answering questions, offering guidance, or helping debug complex issues.
The Dagger Commanders embody everything that makes a great community leader, and we are honored that they have answered the call.
Without further ado, I’m happy to introduce the 2024 Dagger Commanders!
2024 Dagger Commanders
Ali AKCA – Freelancer / Consultant (.aweris on Discord)
While visiting our booth at KubeCon EU, Ali overheard a person’s question and started enthusiastically sharing his Dagger examples with passersby; as more people kept approaching, he kept answering question after question—you’d think he was part of the Dagger team!
Ali’s passion for Dagger and eagerness to share his knowledge with others is infectious. Since joining the Dagger community, he’s always been quick to test new features and provide valuable feedback to improve the experience for everyone.
We’re excited to see him share more of his expertise at upcoming conferences and Dagger Community Calls.
His advice for new users: “ Get involved with the Dagger community. There are amazing people who can help you succeed.”
Batuhan Apaydın – Platform Engineer, Trendyol (developerguy on Discord)
Batuhan’s passion for making Dagger as widely adopted as Docker is infectious. He was one of the first Daggernauts to message me about speaking at a conference on Dagger, and he hasn’t stopped spreading the word since! From the İstanbul Gophers Meetup to DevOpsDays İstanbul, Batuhan has essentially launched his own Dagger roadshow across Turkey, and we couldn’t be more excited.
He has made numerous contributions to the Daggerverse, improving workflows and driving innovation. We’re excited to work with him to bring even more Dagger Meetups to İstanbul, and hopefully beyond.
His advice: “ Keep calm and Dagger!”
Diego Ciangottini – Technologist, INFN (dciangot on Discord)
Calling all Data Scientists! If you’re a Data Scientist, or play one on TV, Diego is the Daggernaut you need to meet. He bridges the gap between scientific communities and Dagger by sharing real-world examples through his live-streaming series.
As part of his Dagger exploration, Diego has also integrated an end-to-end test suite for Kubernetes using Dagger, which has gotten rave reviews from the many Daggernauts seeking best practices with K8s.
His advice: “ Start with simple CI/testing implementations, feel the power of it, and then extend to any workflow that makes sense to you.”
Emmanuel Sibanda – Founder/Software Engineer, AdAlchemyAI (emmzw on Discord)
His demos are some of my favorites to watch. Emmanuel takes highly technical concepts and breaks them down in a way that anyone can understand. He began with a proof of concept (POC) using Dagger and was quickly drawn to its flexibility, which led him to push the envelope of what can be done with Dagger, demonstrating that Dagger can be used to automate far more than just CI with his demo of an AI-driven weekly financial pipeline. He showed how agents use Dagger modules to fetch, filter, categorize, and analyze transaction data, ultimately delivering personalized financial advice via SMS or email.
We can’t wait to see what new and unique Dagger use cases he can bring to the Community.
His advice: “ The more you use Dagger, the more you appreciate its value.”
Jean-Christophe Sirot – Staff Engineer, Decathlon (jice_ on Discord)
If you ever find yourself in the ‘Dagger and Java Discord channel, you’ll likely catch Jean-Christophe discussing how to bring the experimental Java SDK to life. We met in person a few months ago at the Dagger Meetup in Paris, and it was incredible to see how quickly he grasped the (then-new) Dagger Module concept and ran with it.
Jean-Christophe works with pipelines in his day job and is also a co-organizer of the CNCF Paris Meetup group and KCD France. We’re honored to have someone with his expertise join our community and are excited for the rest of our members to learn from him.
His advice: “ Experiment with simple projects, read the documentation because it’s really well done, check out the existing modules developed by others, and don’t hesitate to ask questions on the Discord server.”
Kambui Nurse – Staff Engineer Innovation, Marsh McLennan (siafu7795 on Discord)
During a recent community call, viewers praised Kambui’s demo of the Self Corrective Agentic Workflow Powered by Dagger, saying, ‘I like the way you explain’ and ‘Very impressive, Kambui, can’t wait to see what you do next.’ That perfectly sums up why we’re so excited to have him as a Dagger Commander.
Kambui is at the forefront of pushing Dagger to its limits for AI use cases, and we’re honored that he’s sharing his journey with us and the broader community.
He believes Dagger represents a paradigm shift for developers and encourages newcomers to “ Dream big—you can do anything with it!”.
Kasper Hermansen – Platform Engineer, Lunar (kjuulh on Discord)
If you’re a Rust enthusiast, you need to meet Kasper. You’ll often find him in the ‘Dagger and Rust’ Discord channel, discussing the experimental Rust SDK he’s working on.
Kasper started using Dagger as soon as it was released and is particularly passionate about programmatic pipelines and deployments. He channeled that excitement into building an entire platform on top of Dagger at Lunar. Throughout his project, he has been generous with feedback for our engineering team and is always quick to test new features when we ask.
His advice: “ Start simple. Dagger has excellent quickstarts on building sample code projects, or you can explore how the different SDK examples work. Once you get familiar with the syntax and how it fits into your project, try building your own module for a specific task, publish it, and use it.”
Márk Sági-Kazár – Head of OSS, OpenMeter (sagikazarmark on Discord)
If there was an image search for a Dagger ‘ride or die,’ Mark’s picture would likely appear first. Since the project’s announcement, Mark has been a vocal member of the Dagger community and quickly became one the most enthusiastic advocates of Code>YAML. He has shared his experiences of integrating Dagger at OpenMeter, demoed new ideas during Community calls, shared his Go module with the world, and presented at industry events.
While we deeply value his external advocacy, the feedback he has given our team has been even more valuable. As someone always on the bleeding edge of Dagger usage, Mark often encounters roadblocks and bugs before anyone else, and he consistently takes the time to report these issues with patience and grace.
His advice: “Go through the quickstart. Then grab a Dockerfile of yours and try to rewrite it to Dagger...”
Nipuna Perera – Director of Cloud Engineering, Fidelity Investments (mangocrysis on Discord)
Nipuna is one of the most active Daggernauts, and tackles some of the most challenging corporate use cases—but he never gives up! He’s consistently created GitHub issues with feature requests tailored to users working with Dagger within corporate networks, helping us understand the enterprise blockers Daggernauts face.
Thanks to his direct feedback and enterprise insights, we can triage these needs more efficiently. Nipuna believes that Dagger will soon become as integral to CI/CD as containers are to have become to modern infrastructure, and he’s working closely with us as an enterprise user to make that vision a reality.
If you’re considering using Dagger in a complex enterprise environment, Nipuna is a great person to connect with. He regularly participates in the Dagger Discord community, sharing insights and answering questions based on his experience at Fidelity Investments.
His advice: “ Join the Discord server. Start by creating a simple Dagger module to solve a problem you have today. Dagger is excellent for incrementally adding features to a module. The Dagger team and other users are highly active on Discord and will help you if you run into blockers.”
Nuno Ribeiro – DevOps Engineer, Cleva Solutions (nfr_ribeiro on Discord)
Nuno envisions a future where pipelines can be managed programmatically, free from the traditional CI/CD headaches.
He first discovered Dagger through the Changelog Podcast and was immediately drawn to the concept of running pipelines as code. Once hooked, Nuno made it his mission to spread Dagger’s ideas across Portugal. This week alone, he’s speaking at both DevOps Portugal and KCD Portugal!
When he’s not submitting CFPs, Nuno is busy integrating Dagger into the internal tooling at Cleva Solutions, where he works. It’s great to see Commanders using Dagger in their day-to-day work, as it allows them to share tips and tricks with other enterprise users on the same path.
His advice: “ If you run into a problem, join the Discord community and share the issues you’re facing. There’s always someone ready to help you overcome the hurdles.”
Patrick Magee – Engineering Lead, LexisNexis Risk Solutions (delegate_ on Discord)
Patrick was drawn to Dagger after recognizing the limitations of traditional CI/CD pipelines, and quickly became convinced that Dagger would be a foundational tool for CI/CD workflows.
Since joining our community, he has eagerly jumped in to help users and engage in discussions on the Dagger Discord. In fact, I’m pretty sure he’s been at every Dagger Community call since he joined!
His proudest contributions include enhancing the Dagger experience for Windows OS users and developing the popular Dota2-helper project. But I truly appreciate the energy he brings to community calls and the various Discord threads.
His advice: “ Try to set aside your previous experiences with traditional CI platforms and Dockerfiles. Dagger introduces a new, programmable approach to CI/CD, so it’s crucial to embrace this shift rather than fall back on old habits. By doing so, you’ll be better prepared to fully understand the innovative concepts and flexibility that Dagger offers.”
Paul Dragoonis - CTO, ByteHire (pauldragoonis on Discord)
Where are the PHP fans? If you love PHP, you’ve got Paul to thank for leading the development of the experimental PHP SDK. Not only has he dedicated time and effort to the SDK, but he’s also spoken at events like the PHP UK Conference and Web Summer Camp to showcase the benefits of Dagger to the PHP community. He is known for being passionate and outspoken, always pushing us to be better.
He’s known for telling the world, “Burn your YAML. Build more code.” — We love it!.
His advice: “ Just dive in. It’s easier to swim in Dagger-land than in a big pot of YAML soup.”
Peter Jausovec – Senior Principal Platform Advocate, solo.io (.peterj on Discord)
I first came across Peter during his live stream where he tried out Dagger for the first time. It was a fantastic watch because it provided our team with valuable feedback that helped improve the developer experience for the whole community.
Since then, Peter has regularly joined community calls to share tips and tricks, and he’s even built a Dagger module for Envoy Proxy. We’re excited to see him continue sharing his insights with fellow Daggernauts!
His advice: “ Take one of your existing scripts, refer to the Dagger docs, and convert it into Dagger functions.”
Thanabodee Charoenpiriyakij - Software Engineer, LINE Company (Thailand) ( wingyplus on Discord)
Thanabodee created the experimental Elixir SDK, opening the door for Elixir enthusiasts to experience the power of Dagger in their preferred language.
When he’s not working on the SDK or expanding his collection of Dagger modules, you’ll find him on various Dagger Discord channels helping other users, or on GitHub providing feedback on the latest PRs.
In his next endeavor, he’s excited to use Dagger to manage Kubernetes configurations, experimenting with mutating and merging configurations using Dagger modules as a framework, and sharing his insights with fellow Daggernauts.
His advice: “ pick up the SDK for your favorite language, experiment with existing use cases, and then try using Dagger on a small project to see how it can help you.”
Want to learn more from these Dagger Commanders, or ask them to join one of your events to speak about Dagger? Join our Discord and say hi!
Do you have what it takes to be a Dagger Commander? Nominate yourself or a fellow Daggernaut for the 2025 batch here! If you have any questions about the program, feel free to reach out to me (handle: mirandacarter) on Discord.
