Alejandro Mena
Researcher at JetBrains
Utrecht, Utrecht, Netherlands
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolAlejandro Mena is a researcher and software engineer with 20 years of experience bridging formal methods, programming language theory, and practical engineering. Currently at JetBrains, he combines a strong academic background (PhD and postdoc) with hands-on contributions to prominent open-source projects like Arrow (Kotlin FP) and the Haskell Language Server, improving optics, STM, and code intelligence features. He is passionate about type theory, static analysis and functional programming, and has authored several FP-focused books and libraries that reflect his emphasis on practical theory. Alejandro has worked across academia and industry—from formal resource analysis to production tooling—and often brings mathematical rigor to solve real-world developer problems. Based in Utrecht, he has a track record of refactoring complex codebases, upgrading language tooling, and shipping cross-platform improvements (including Windows installer and protocol work) that are easy to overlook but critical for adoption.
20 years of coding experience
7 years of employment as a software developer
Computer Science and Mathematics, Computer Science and Mathematics at Universidad Autónoma de MadridMaster, Computer Science, Master, Computer Science at Universiteit UtrechtPhD on Software and Systems, PhD on Software and Systems at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid
Spanish, English, French, German, Dutch
Stackoverflow
2,165reputation
28kreached
5answers
2questions
Github Skills (32)
kotlin10
windows10
code-analysis10
installer10
dotnet-core10
ghc10
functional-programming10
coroutines10
csharp10
opt10
installers10
haskell10
server10
type-check9
netframework9
Programming languages (20)
Github contributions (5)
DanielG/ghc-mod
Jun 2014 - Jul 2015
Happy Haskell Hacking for editors. CI: https://gitlab.com/dxld/ghc-mod/pipelines
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:82 commits, 4 comments, 1 issue in 1 year 1 month
Contributions summary:Alejandro primarily contributed to the Haskell code base of the `ghc-mod` repository, implementing and modifying features related to code analysis and manipulation within the context of Haskell development. Their contributions involved the initial implementation and subsequent refinement of case splitting functionality, a feature useful for code refactoring. The user also worked on initial body generation for signatures and instance declarations, enhancing the tool's ability to automatically create code snippets.
ghcmodhaskellcabalgitlab
arrow-kt/arrow
Oct 2021 - Jan 2023
Λrrow - The perfect companion for your Kotlin journey - Inspired by functional, data-oriented and concurrent programming
Role in this project:Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:4 releases, 355 reviews, 88 commits in 1 year 3 months
Contributions summary:Alejandro primarily contributed to the arrow-kt/arrow repository by refactoring and improving the codebase, specifically focusing on the optics and core functionalities. They renamed and refactored components, upgraded dependencies like kotlinx-coroutines, and addressed issues related to generic classes and sealed hierarchies within the optics KSP plugin. Furthermore, the user worked on implementing features within the `suspend` API, and improving the STM functionalities within the Arrow project.
kotlin-dslfunctional-programmingtypeclassesarrowfor-comprehension
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