I am not looking for a job but I am looking for interesting things to work on. If you have a cool project that needs some work and think I’d be a good fit, or if you just think I might find it interesting, feel free to reach out!

What I Do Link to heading

I specialize in writing high performance code and systems.

I am very experienced writing C, C++, and Rust. I primarily work with Rust today, and when I need a scripting language I use Python.

I contribute to OSS software, and I write a lot of code for my own projects. See my Projects.

I have a Computer Architecture background (MS in ECE from Georgia Tech), so I have a very strong grasp of what the underlying architecture is actually doing. This pairs extremely well with my interests in algorithms and has proven to be a solid foundation for evaluating and writing high performance code.

I also read CS papers for fun.

Consulting Link to heading

I’m open to consulting on projects.

If it’s OSS I might help out for free, but I’m happy to take paid work.

What do you need? Link to heading

Have some unknown performance problem you can’t figure out? Link to heading

I’m very comfortable going from “my program is slow” to “we’re spending a lot of time in this syscall because our memory layout isn’t optimized for the cache line size”. I mean, usually the problem is “our ‘10x’ engineer wrote an accidentally quadratic subroutine so it only worked long enough for him to demo it and get another promo”. I can fix that too, but sometimes it’s actually interesting!

Need to work with the OSS community? Link to heading

I’ve worked with OSS projects quite a lot -> GitHub/arcuru. I’ve maintained a couple projects over the years, contributed small changes to a lot of projects, and have written some small projects myself. I’m working on bigger OSS things, most recently I accidentally started building a decentralized database and object store because I wanted to search my email. Don’t ask…(or do, if you want me to talk your ear off)

Want to discuss your fancy pants higher-level algorithmic approach? Link to heading

I read CS research papers for fun, and CLRS holds a place of honor on my bookshelf. No I’m not joking, please send me your paper recommendations. I’m particularly interested in Distributed Systems and optimization work of all kinds, and I’m currently working my way through the foundational research on LLMs (UPDATE: Read a lot and wrote about BitNet, and now just staying up to date).

My favorite paper is probably Array Layouts for Comparison-Based Searching, partially because it’s funny to say “I enjoyed reading a 50 page paper on optimizing binary search”.

Need to handtune some assembly for your core algorithms? Link to heading

Maybe the compilers aren’t utilizing SIMD as much as you think is possible? I don’t normally recommend it but I’m happy to help.

What about blogging? Need to communicate with a technical audience? Link to heading

I do that sometimes. I won’t say I’m good at it yet, but I’m working on it.

Do you have a novel CPU architecture you want analyzed and benchmarked? Link to heading

I’ve done that briefly, and would love to work in that area again.

Do you understand the Spectre/Meltdown bugs and when to enable the fixes for them? Link to heading

Because I do, I helped benchmark the fixes in the Windows Kernel. You can probably turn off the fixes safely.

Maybe you’re a finance firm and need someone to embed your algorithm in an FPGA to run at lightning speed? Link to heading

Do you want me on the algorithm side or the hardware design side, because I can comfortably do both (though I’m a bit rusty on HW design nowadays). The only reason I’ve never worked in finance is because my work is not my life, and finance firms have horrible reputations for work/life balance. Very interesting tech stack though, and I’m intentionally well-versed in both traditional investing and HFT strategies.

DevOps got you down? Link to heading

I host and manage a suite of Fediverse software using Docker and a set of scripts that are starting to resemble Kubernetes. I also self-host, or have at least tried and tested, most common OSS self-hosted tools for my private use. At last count I manage ~100 running services/containers, mostly Docker containers but with a few services configured and running natively on my NixOS machines, spread across a few local and a few cloud VPS’s as needed.

Do you work in a weird language? Link to heading

Perhaps your beloved founder believed in a niche language that nobody uses and now you need somebody who can maintain it while they go off to be a bazillionaire?

My personal computers are all managed from a 5k+ line NixOS config handwritten in Nix, I think I can handle it. I’ve written significant amounts of code in C, C++, Rust, Python, Java, and all manner of horrific scripting languages. I’d consider myself an expert in the lunacy of C and C++17, and I’m getting there in Rust.

When I have my pick on a greenfield project, I code in Rust or Python depending on the project goals.

Things I Don’t Want To Do Link to heading

Program Management Link to heading

I was a PM at MSFT for a few years right out of school. Hated it, and it was a huge struggle while I was also very clearly (in retrospect) struggling with debilitating social anxiety. Similar to my tech side though, I am extremely well-versed in the ‘core concepts’ so to speak. Happy to have an in depth discussion on the Mythical Man-Month, Dale Carnegie’s philosophies or Daniel Pink’s advice on motivating employees though.

Frontend UX design Link to heading

I’m an engineer, go pay a real designer. My UX skills start and end with FaxYourBalls.com