Alexander Surma
Principal Software Engineer at Shopify
Bristol, England, United Kingdom
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolAlexander Surma is a Principal Software Engineer with 16 years of experience building developer-facing web platform tooling and simplifying complex browser and server interactions. Currently at Shopify after seven years as a Staff Developer Advocate at Google, he blends full‑stack engineering with DX advocacy—contributing to high-profile open standards and projects like whatwg/streams, IntersectionObserver polyfills, Comlink, Squoosh, and ChromeLabs demos. He’s comfortable across build systems, WebAssembly tooling, and web APIs, having shipped integrations for Shopify’s API and session storage across multiple databases and improved CLI and template workflows. Known for meticulous documentation and testing, he often fixes subtle API and developer experience gaps that others miss. Based in Bristol, he pairs deep platform knowledge with a quiet, internet‑first personality and a persistent appetite for simplicity.
16 years of coding experience
12 years of employment as a software developer
Bachelor of Science (BSc), Computer Science, Bachelor of Science (BSc), Computer Science at Freie Universität Berlin
German, English
Github Skills (69)
apim10
postgresql10
testing10
command-line-interface10
http10
web-development10
actor-model10
javascript10
shopify-cli10
uid10
mochajs10
api10
front-end-development10
html10
emscripten10
Programming languages (29)
Github contributions (5)
GoogleChromeLabs/simplehttp2server
Oct 2015 - Mar 2019
A simple HTTP/2 server for development
Role in this project:
Backend Developer
Backend DeveloperContributions:19 releases, 61 commits, 10 PRs in 3 years 5 months
Contributions summary:Alexander primarily contributed to the backend functionality of the simple HTTP/2 server. Their work involved adding support for essential features such as CORS, push manifests, and artificial delays. They also implemented cross-compiling scripts and integrated support for Firebase configuration, including redirects and rewrites. Furthermore, the user refactored code and made improvements such as adding GZIP compression.
GoogleChromeLabs/houdini-samples
Jan 2016 - Oct 2020
Demos for different Houdini APIs
Role in this project:Front-end Developer
Front-end DeveloperContributions:75 commits, 35 PRs, 65 pushes in 4 years 9 months
Contributions summary:Alexander primarily contributed to the front-end development of various Houdini API demos. Their work involved implementing interactive UI elements and features, specifically focusing on the use of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. The commits demonstrate the creation of different visual effects and interactive components, enhancing the user experience within the Houdini sample repository. Key contributions include the implementation of parallax scrolling, a Twitter header component, and various paint worklet demos, showcasing a focus on web technologies.
apihoudinijstreelocation-servicesgeotools
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