Ryan Vandersmith

Ryan Vandersmith is an R&D software engineer with over 10 years of experience and a deep self-taught background in meteorology. He builds weather forecasting and analysis tools used by photographers, storm chasers, and researchers, including Mesoview (skychaser.mesoview.app), a cloud inversion forecast tool, a mountain wave visualization tool, and a stepwise CAPE/CIN contribution to SounderPy. Professionally, he worked on Caffeine.ai, an AI website builder, and led Motoko programming-language tooling, including a VS Code extension with more than 85,000 installs. He also has experience with cross-chain EVM integrations, developer-experience products, UX research, Rust research software at the University of Colorado Boulder, consulting, and public-sector software.

Led development of programming language tooling for Motoko, the smart contract language of the Internet Computer. The tools connect editor workflows with browser and Node.js environments using TypeScript, Rust, and WebAssembly.

- **[VS Code extension](https://github.com/caffeinelabs/vscode-motoko):** type checking, IntelliSense, go to definition, hover docs, import organization, snippets, `dfx.json` validation, one-click temporary deployment, and Mops and Vessel package support. It works standalone without `dfx` on all major operating systems, has more than 85,000 installs, and has had 150+ releases.
- **[Formatter](https://github.com/caffeinelabs/prettier-plugin-motoko) (`prettier-plugin-motoko`, `mo-fmt`):** a Prettier plugin and standalone CLI with import organization, used by 550+ projects.
- **[Live-reload server](https://github.com/caffeinelabs/motoko-dev-server) (`mo-dev`, `mo-test`):** redeploys canisters, regenerates type declarations, and runs `*.test.mo` unit tests on file change; used by 400+ projects.
- **[Compiler npm package](https://github.com/caffeinelabs/node-motoko) (`motoko`):** compiles and runs Motoko in Node.js or the browser, with a virtual file system, Candid and WebAssembly output, parse trees, and GitHub package loading; used by 460+ projects.
- **[Embed service](https://github.com/caffeinelabs/embed-motoko) ([announcement](https://levelup.gitconnected.com/embed-motoko-interactive-smart-contracts-in-your-medium-story-or-blog-post-58c85719eee6)):** interactive, runnable Motoko snippets for Medium articles, blogs, and websites via iframe and oEmbed.
- **[Starter projects](https://github.com/rvanasa/vite-react-motoko):** Vite + React + Motoko template (58 stars, 30+ forks), plus [Motoko + Rust](https://github.com/rvanasa/motoko-rust-starter), [Vite + React + Rust](https://github.com/rvanasa/vite-react-icp-rust), and [Advent of Code](https://github.com/rvanasa/aoc-motoko-starter) templates.
- **Language and library utilities:** [`mo-convert`](https://github.com/rvanasa/mo-convert) (90+ consistently named base library type conversions), syntax highlighting for [highlight.js](https://github.com/rvanasa/highlightjs-motoko) and the [Discourse](https://github.com/rvanasa/discourse-highlightjs-motoko) developer forum.

A suite of tools that made the Motoko programming language easier to write, test, preview, and embed.

Motoko Language Tooling

Blocks is an online visual smart contract builder for the Internet Computer blockchain. Inspired by node-based editors such as Blender Nodes and Unreal Engine Blueprint, it lets developers build Motoko smart contracts by connecting blocks in a dataflow graph, then compile, deploy, and test them directly from the browser.

Built with React and JavaScript with a collaborator, and funded by a $25,000 DFINITY Developer Grant. Features include interactive tutorials, example and template contracts (such as fungible tokens and DIP721 NFTs), pretty-printed Motoko output, custom expression blocks that mix visual logic with Motoko syntax, GitHub package imports, built-in test cases, and an embeddable `react-blocks-editor` npm package. The repository has 160+ GitHub stars.

[Web application](https://blocks-editor.github.io/blocks/) · [Homepage](https://blocks-editor.github.io/) · [Source code](https://github.com/Blocks-Editor/blocks) · [Design process](https://levelup.gitconnected.com/how-we-created-blocks-an-online-drag-and-drop-smart-contract-editor-fe23eff4d933)

A low-code, drag-and-drop smart contract editor, funded by a $25,000 DFINITY Developer Grant.

Blocks

I co-led the development of a feedback board for the DFINITY / ICP developer community. The product used React, Tailwind, Vite, and Next.js and was used to inform development priorities for the developer experience and platform teams.

Built a full-stack feedback product to support developer experience research and prioritization.

Developer Experience Feedback Board

Worked across product engineering, language tooling, developer experience, and ecosystem research at DFINITY Foundation. Contributed to Caffeine.ai, an AI website builder, and adopted agentic AI tools including Copilot, Cursor, and Antigravity to accelerate engineering work.

- Led Motoko language tooling, including a VS Code extension, formatter, live-reload development server, package manager, embed service, and compiler browser support (Node.js, TypeScript, Docker, WebAssembly).
- Led cross-chain EVM integrations and an observability dashboard using Rust and Grafana.
- Built the Developer Experience Feedback Board with React, Tailwind, Vite, and Next.js.
- Led design of a standard library optimized for LLM code generation, including big data analysis using Langfuse and Databricks.
- Conducted UX surveys and generative and evaluative studies.
- Analyzed Motoko source code on GitHub with Python to inform language design.
- Mentored community developer grant recipients.

The VS Code extension reached more than 85,000 installs.

Led programming-language tooling and cross-chain integrations, contributed to an AI website builder, and led developer experience products.

Senior Software Engineer

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