About

About the practice

Simple components.
New possibilities.

Arc Theory is an independent technical and operational practice. We design and build systems that connect how a business works — its people, processes, data, and tools.

Explore my background
From bottom to top: construction arcs, a refined outline, pencil-like color shading, and the finished Arc Theory logo.
The idea behind the name

A simple shape.
A way of thinking.

Graphic design is the art I’ve always felt most at home in. Geometry gives me a way in: simple shapes, arranged with intention, can become something entirely different.

An arc is such a simple shape, yet it does so much in architecture. I’m drawn to that idea — that even something complex can be understood through simpler forms.

I approach systems the same way: thinking in modules, combining simple pieces, and borrowing ideas across tools and types of systems. The best solution doesn’t always need to be the most technically sophisticated. Sometimes it’s the simplest arrangement that works.

Danielle McKee, founder of Arc Theory
The person behind the practice

I’m Danielle.

I’ve worked across industries and disciplines, learning where operational problems repeat. That experience informs the frameworks, processes, products, and components I bring to the work.

Arc Theory is where that perspective becomes practice: understanding the problem, connecting the pieces, and building something that holds together.

Tangrams

The possibility
is in the pieces.

I used to play tangrams with my dad. A small set of simple shapes could become something entirely different, just by changing how the pieces fit together.

That idea feels connected to the work I do now. The possibility is often already in the pieces we have. It takes a different arrangement to see it.

As humans, we tend toward complexity. We add a tool, another process, another workaround. My instinct is to step back: what are the essential pieces, and how could they work together more clearly?

The experience behind the perspective

Explore the background.

Different industries. Familiar patterns. Follow the roles, explore a skill, or look at the tools behind the work.

Independent Practice

My practice — I set technical direction with leadership, then personally build the system that delivers on it. Most recent first.

Nov 2025 – presentAirbnbTechnical Lead & Consultant (Contract)

Set the technical direction and personally built the platform behind Airbnb's internal insider-access program — taking an early internal tool to a system the team can run and grow, with the integrations and incentive workflows it needed to scale.

65% fewer manual processes and three enterprise integrations shipped solo — left fully documented for the team to own.

Skills in practice

  • Solo solutions architecture
  • Data normalization
  • Compliance middleware

Tools

Airtable · GraphQL · Apache Hive · Google Cloud Run · React / TypeScript

2023 – presentFiscal-Sponsorship PlatformProduct Architect & Fractional Technology Partner

A fiscal sponsor's payments-and-operations platform. A single cloud integration service automates the expense-to-payment flow that used to be done by hand for every sponsored project — keeping intake, spend, and accounting reconciled end to end. Arc Theory has led its technical direction since 2023.

Roughly doubled the clients supported each month — 22 → 43 — with no added headcount.

Skills in practice

  • Fractional tech leadershipSet technical direction and the phased platform roadmap.
  • Integration designBuilt the middleware that keeps intake, spend, and accounting reconciled end to end.

Tools

Airtable · Google Cloud Run · Ramp · QuickBooks

See the highlighted results →
Jun 2024 – Feb 2025AppleSolutions Consultant (Contract)

Embedded solutions consultant across Apple Music and Apple TV+. Designed and shipped seven internal operations systems — original-content tracking, audio QA, publishing dashboards, artist relations — and helped bridge two departments with a vendor-task automation microservice.

Standardized, visible workflows across content QA, publishing, and artist relations.

Skills in practice

  • Systems design
  • Requirements & best-practice advisory

Tools

Airtable · Internal integration services

2024 – 2025Development Slate PlatformProduct Architect & Strategic Product Oversight

A pre-production platform for a Los Angeles film & TV studio — a dual CRM and development-slate system that tracks incoming submissions and the projects moving through development. Re-architected and normalized the entire data model, built role-specific interfaces, and wired native contacts and calendar integration across iOS and Android.

20+ hours a week saved through scheduling automation; seven fragmented structures consolidated to one.

Skills in practice

  • Re-architecture & normalization
  • Fractional product oversight

Tools

Airtable · Google Calendar · Google Contacts · Zoom

2024Budget ManagementSystems Architect / Product Lead

A budget-management platform for a cancer research institution (SCHARP & VIDD divisions). Documented the end-to-end process across four personas, then rebuilt it to track budget periods, POs, invoices, and contracts — replacing a rigid single-step approval with a dynamic, multi-layer one.

Calculation errors at the budget, contract, and PO level — resolved.

Skills in practice

  • Process documentation
  • Approval-chain design

Tools

Airtable · BPMN 2.0 · DocuSign

2024Travel Approval & ExpenseSystems Architect / Product Lead

Replaced lost-in-SharePoint travel approvals with a BPMN-modeled system — dynamic, conference-aware request forms, sequenced approval chains, and a DocuSign automation that maps record data into the right PDF, routes for signature, and tracks completion.

Finance gained real-time visibility into requests against budget; auditable trails replaced lost paperwork.

Skills in practice

  • Workflow modeling
  • Integration design

Tools

Airtable · DocuSign · BPMN 2.0

Earlier Career

The strategy, finance, and process-transformation roles that built the foundation under the architecture work.

Dec 2021 – Dec 2023DeloitteOperations Transformation Consultant

Advised enterprise clients through large-scale operational and systems change — guided a major energy company through an SAP migration aligning 15 cross-functional teams, and led data-process work that strengthened HEDIS reporting compliance for a large healthcare provider.

The discovery-and-facilitation muscle I now apply to platform architecture.

Skills in practice

  • Process design & facilitation
  • Stakeholder management
  • Scenario financial modeling

Tools

SAP · LucidChart · Signavio

Sep 2020 – Dec 2021Olive AIFinancial Analyst & Business Partner

Financial strategy at a high-growth healthcare-automation startup. Automated headcount expense forecasting and built my first production low-code integrations — connecting the HRIS to the financial model — which became the backbone of the practice.

Where the practice's low-code integration backbone began.

Skills in practice

  • FP&A
  • Low-code integration

Tools

Airtable · Financial modeling

Jan 2018 – May 2020The Ohio State UniversitySpreadsheet & Databases Teaching Assistant

Guided undergraduate finance students through in-class Excel modeling exercises, teaching core spreadsheet and database concepts alongside how they show up in real analyst work.

The analytical foundation the rest of the practice was built on.

Skills in practice

  • Teaching & mentorship
  • Spreadsheet modeling

Tools

Excel · Relational databases

Summer 2016 – Summer 2017Cincinnati Children's HospitalResearch Assistant

Neuroscience research in a temporal lobe epilepsy lab, studying how neurons responded to electrical activity — running the statistical analysis behind it. Where the curiosity about how things work got rigorous.

"If you can survive a neuroscience lab, you can survive anything."

Skills in practice

  • Research design
  • Quantitative analysis
  • Working with ambiguity

Tools

Statistical analysis · Clinical data

See the thinking
in the work.

Explore case studies →