Alexander Courtis
Principal Software Engineer at Atlassian
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolAlexander Courtis is a Principal Software Engineer based in Sydney with 12+ years of experience building cloud-native systems and developer tools, currently driving architecture and delivery at Atlassian. He blends Java/Spring and Node.js backend expertise with AWS production experience (EC2, RDS, DynamoDB, SWF, Elastic Beanstalk) and front-end skills in HTML5/CSS3 and UI-focused improvements. A longtime systems hacker comfortable in C, Lua and low-level tooling, Alex contributes to prominent open-source projects such as the Neovim file-explorer and Wayland compositor work, where he’s improved UX, XWayland integration and performance. His background spans consulting, self-directed engineering and management consulting at PwC, giving him a rare mix of client-facing rigor and deep implementation chops. Colleagues know him for shipping pragmatic, well-tested solutions and for quietly improving developer ergonomics across stacks. He also brings a hands-on maker sensibility—evident in hobby work like OpenSCAD—reflecting curiosity beyond conventional enterprise software.
12 years of coding experience
11 years of employment as a software developer
The University of Sydney
Stackoverflow
79reputation
478kreached
1answer
0questions
Github Skills (28)
objective-c10
composition10
xwayland10
user-interface10
c1110
ws10
graphical-user-interface10
human-interface10
c1710
neovim10
lua10
file-explorer10
compositing10
composite10
macos10
Programming languages (15)
Github contributions (5)
nvim-tree/nvim-tree.lua
Feb 2022 - Jan 2023
A file explorer tree for neovim written in lua
Role in this project:
Full-stack Developer
Full-stack DeveloperContributions:1467 reviews, 239 commits, 959 PRs in 11 months
Contributions summary:Alexander's commits primarily focused on enhancing the file explorer for Neovim, adding features to improve user experience and key binding customization. Their work included the implementation of key unmapping features, improving the handling of opened buffers and their appearance, and enabling customization of the user interface, in addition to implementing performance enhancements such as improved diagnostics. The user made significant contributions to the actions and UI elements of the file explorer.
file-explorerluaneovim
djpohly/dwl
Jul 2020 - Aug 2020
dwm for Wayland - ARCHIVE: development has moved to Codeberg
Role in this project:Back-end Developer & System Architect
Back-end Developer & System ArchitectContributions:12 commits, 6 PRs, 50 comments in 20 days
Contributions summary:Alexander primarily contributed to the development of XWayland support within the dwl compositor. Their commits involved adding XWayland server functionality, including basic window management capabilities, and implementing unmanaged window support (e.g., for dropdown menus). The user also incorporated several critical system-level changes, such as default cursor settings and enhancements to focus handling, which streamlined the integration of XWayland with the Wayland compositor.
waylandwayland-compositorwlrootstilingcompositor
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