Alon Zakai
Staff Software Engineer at Google
United States
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top School
Top expert inCross-Platform Development and Programming Languages
Alon Zakai is a Staff Software Engineer and one of the co-creators of WebAssembly, with 15 years of deep experience building and optimizing compile-to-Web toolchains like Emscripten and Binaryen. He has driven WebAssembly adoption through core compiler work, test-suite improvements, and practical ports of major engines and libraries (Unreal, Unity, Box2D, Bullet) to run efficiently in browsers. At Google and previously Mozilla he focused on squeezing down code size and boosting runtime performance, including clever integrations with JavaScript and Web APIs such as WebGL and audio. Beyond compiler internals, he has significant expertise in build/release automation and infrastructure for reproducible WebAssembly artifacts, evidenced by contributions to emsdk and Squoosh’s codec builds. His academic background in neural computation and early startup experience building a Web-focused 3D engine give him an unusual combination of research rigor, systems-level thinking, and hands-on product engineering.
15 years of coding experience
14 years of employment as a software developer
Ph.D, Neural Computation, Ph.D, Neural Computation at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Stackoverflow
1,058reputation
31kreached
27answers
0questions
Github Skills (68)
float3210
python10
sdl10
testing10
databases10
text-to-speech10
bash10
rust-wasm10
c1110
c1710
lua10
automation10
box2d10
build-automation10
floating-point10
Programming languages (27)
Github contributions (5)
kripken/speak.js
Aug 2011 - Dec 2017
Text-to-Speech in JavaScript using eSpeak
Role in this project:
Full-stack Developer
Full-stack DeveloperContributions:37 commits, 2 PRs, 2 pushes in 6 years 5 months
Contributions summary:Alon primarily focused on modifying and maintaining the front-end and build aspects of the project. The user implemented changes to the demo and hello world HTML pages for usability. They also modified the build process, including the use of Emscripten, and bundled resources for the project. They also added options for espeak to work correctly.
espeakjavascripttext-to-speech
emscripten-core/emscripten
Mar 2011 - Jan 2023
Emscripten: An LLVM-to-WebAssembly Compiler
Role in this project:Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:7941 reviews, 13395 commits, 4843 PRs in 11 years 11 months
Contributions summary:Alon focused on maintaining and improving the Emscripten toolchain, contributing to the compilation process for WebAssembly. Their work involved removing outdated code, documenting API functions, and implementing support for experimental features, such as the support for WASM BigInt. They made changes to the core settings and the JS and C++ code that is used by the project, and added tests to verify functionality and performance.
compileremscriptenllvmwebassemblywasm
Find and Hire Top DevelopersWe’ve analyzed the programming source code of over 60 million software developers on GitHub and scored them by 50,000 skills. Sign-up on Prog,AI to search for software developers.