About me

Software engineer, linux kernel contributor, and entrepreneur based in San Francisco.

Currently: Distinguished Engineer, Office of the CTO, Fastly, Inc.

Previously: Founder and CEO of packagecloud.io, a fully bootstrapped and profitable dev tools company, which was acquired.

Long ago:

• Y Combinator S'07 company founder
• Carnegie Mellon University, B.S. in Computer Science, 2007

When I'm not working, I like to spend time with my Palestinian friends at Gaza Sky Geeks in Gaza and Ramallah. I love and miss them dearly. I have been to Gaza 2016-2019, 2022, and 2023 for both short stays (2-3 weeks) and longer stays (3 months).

Publications

I've written many in-depth technical articles throughout my career. Here are a few selected pieces, which I am very proud of:

• Monitoring and Tuning the Linux Networking Stack: Receiving Data
• Monitoring and Tuning the Linux Networking Stack: Sending Data
• Two frequently used system calls are 77% slower on AWS EC2
• The Definitive Guide to Linux System Calls
• Micro-optimizations matter: preventing 20 million system calls
• How setting the TZ environment variable avoids thousands of system calls

Conference talks

I've been very fortunate that I've had the opportunity to speak at many conferences throughout my career, some of which were recorded.

Some of my favorite talks over the years:

• All your network monitoring is (probably) wrong
• Infrastructure as code might be literally impossible
• All Programmers MUST Learn C and Assembly

How it all started

When I was 5, my dad found an early Apple II clone and a book titled: “BASIC Programming for Kids” by Roz Ault in a recycling bin at a family owned recycling business, where he works, ready for disposal. He rescued the book and the discarded computer and brought it home.

I learned to code by copying programs from this book into a Laser 128 at the kitchen table in my parents' house.