Ben Kirwin is a Member of Technical Staff with 13 years of experience building backend systems, currently working at Materialize in Montreal. He specializes in SQL parsing, planning, and catalog management, contributing to the open-source Materialize project by implementing and refactoring source-related statements like CREATE SOURCE and ALTER SOURCE. Previously a Staff Engineer at Stripe and an early developer at Hopper, he brings production-scale engineering experience across payments and travel tech. Ben holds a BA in Computer Science and Philosophy from McGill and combines rigorous engineering discipline with a taste for language-level correctness and developer-facing tooling.
13 years of coding experience
9 years of employment as a software developer
BA, Computer Science, Philosophy, BA, Computer Science, Philosophy at McGill University
Real-time Data Integration and Transformation: use SQL to transform, deliver, and act on fast-changing data.
Role in this project:
Backend Developer
Contributions:1150 reviews, 72 commits, 584 PRs in 5 months
Contributions summary:Ben primarily contributed to the backend development of the Materialize project, focusing on the SQL parsing and planning aspects. Their work involved moving and refactoring code related to the `CREATE SOURCE` statement, specifically dealing with options like `REMOTE`, `SIZE`, and `TIMELINE`. They also implemented the `ALTER SOURCE` statement and improved error messages related to catalog items, demonstrating expertise in SQL processing, catalog management, and source configuration.
Contributions:271 commits, 64 pushes, 7 branches in 1 year 11 months
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Ben Kirwin - Member Of Technical Staff at Materialize