Ahmed Charles
Senior Software Engineer at Datadog
Redwood City, California, United States
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolAhmed Charles is a Senior Software Engineer based in Redwood City with 12 years of experience building high-performance, high-availability distributed systems and APIs. He brings deep systems-level expertise in C++ (10y) and Rust (6y), a long history on Linux/Windows platforms, and practical experience optimizing performance and testing distributed services. Ahmed has modernized compiler codebases (LLVM/Clang) and contributed to notable Rust projects like mio and lalrpop, reflecting both low-level I/O and parser-generator domain knowledge. His background spans major companies including Datadog, Box, A9/Apple-like teams, and multiple stints at Microsoft, showing consistent work on large-scale production systems. He pairs compiler/static analysis familiarity with cloud exposure (EC2, S3) and a long track record with tooling (git, gcc/clang, Visual Studio), making him effective at cross-platform, performance-critical engineering. A less obvious strength is his knack for incremental modernizations—e.g., migrating legacy C++ patterns to modern constructs—which improves maintainability without sacrificing reliability.
12 years of coding experience
13 years of employment as a software developer
Bachelor of Science (BS), Computer Software Engineering, Bachelor of Science (BS), Computer Software Engineering at Florida Institute of Technology
Github Skills (47)
asynchronous10
debug10
c-language10
lib10
system-programming10
non-blocking10
python10
async10
memory-management10
cross-platform10
cmake10
networking10
grammar10
cl10
grammars10
Programming languages (20)
Github contributions (5)
Mudlet/Mudlet
Apr 2014 - May 2017
⚔️ A cross-platform, open source, and super fast MUD client with scripting in Lua
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:389 commits, 108 PRs, 56 pushes in 3 years 1 month
Contributions summary:Ahmed's commits primarily focused on integrating external libraries and dependencies into the build process for the Mudlet project. Their contributions added support for libraries like Lua, PCRE, Boost, YAJL, HUNSPELL, and ZIP by creating CMake scripts to locate and link against them. This indicates a focus on building a cross-platform application and integrating various supporting libraries to enhance its functionality. Additionally, the user made efforts to address specific build issues, such as compiler compatibility with the newer Lua version or MSVC.
gamec-plus-plus-17multi-user-dungeondefoldrpg
lalrpop/lalrpop
Sep 2015 - Feb 2018
LR(1) parser generator for Rust
Role in this project:Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:21 commits, 23 PRs, 3 pushes in 2 years 5 months
Contributions summary:Ahmed primarily contributes to the LALRPOP parser generator for Rust, focusing on enhancing its functionality and fixing bugs. They've removed unused code, added error handling for incorrect macro usage, and introduced support for `pub(restricted)` visibility. Additionally, the user refactored parts of the codebase, migrating from `lalrpop-intern` to `string-cache` for improved performance and maintainability. The user is improving the functionality of the project, adding support for git tags when publishing.
rustgrammarparsingparser-generatorpeg
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