Christopher Wren
Volunteer Builder at We the Builders
Arlington, Massachusetts, United States
Summary
👤
Senior🎓
Top SchoolChristopher Wren is an experienced software engineer, researcher, and founder with 15+ years building people-centered systems across Android platform work, civic technology, and public-sector service delivery. He led engineering at Google on Android System UI, Notifications, and platform metrics, contributed to well-known AOSP and Trebuchet launcher projects, and later applied human-centered design and info-visualization to improve U.S. social safety net and refugee programs at the U.S. Digital Service. As owner of tricative llc he provides technical leadership for pro-democracy and civic tech groups, blending systems engineering, privacy-aware identity work, and process optimization. His background spans academic research at MIT and MERL—where he shipped perceptual toolkits and secure building technologies—giving him a rare mix of rigorous research and product-focused delivery. Christopher’s strengths include diagnosing complex systems from forensic logs to sensor networks and translating messy human workflows into elegant computational constructs. He is motivated by designing interfaces and architectures that animate and enrich people’s interactions while improving real-world outcomes.
15 years of coding experience
28 years of employment as a software developer
Ph.D. Computer Science, Ph.D. Computer Science at Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyH.S., H.S. at Western Reserve Academy
Github Skills (7)
javas10
android-sdk10
mobile-development10
android10
launcher10
java10
android-studio9
Programming languages (5)
Github contributions (5)
CyanogenMod/android_packages_apps_Trebuchet
Sep 2013 - Jan 2015
Trebuchet Launcher
Role in this project:
Mobile Developer (Android)
Mobile Developer (Android)Contributions:228 commits in 1 year 4 months
Contributions summary:Christopher primarily contributed to the Trebuchet Launcher application, a core Android system application. Their work involved implementing features related to widget handling, specifically, remembering the provider path when creating a widget and backing up widget assets. The user also fixed issues related to the restored state of packages and the handling of promise icons. Further contributions include adjustments to transparent system bars and general code enhancements.
linuxlauncher
aosp-mirror/platform_frameworks_support
Jun 2012 - May 2016
Role in this project:Mobile Developer (Android)
Mobile Developer (Android)Contributions:84 commits in 3 years 11 months
Contributions summary:Christopher's commits primarily focused on enhancing the support library for Android. Their work involved updating documentation related to `EXTRA_PEOPLE` in the `NotificationCompat` class, ensuring proper integration with `ContactsContract` documentation and schema URIs. Additionally, they added support for the `areNotificationsEnabled` feature. The changes suggest a focus on improving notification features.
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