David Christiansen
Senior Research Software Engineer at Lean FRO
Copenhagen, Capital Region of Denmark
Summary
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Top SchoolDavid Christiansen is a Senior Research Software Engineer based in Copenhagen with 15 years of experience building language tooling, compilers, and developer integrations. He blends deep academic roots—a PhD focused on domain-specific and dependently typed programming—with hands-on engineering at organizations like Galois and Lean FRO, and executive leadership at the Haskell Foundation. His open-source contributions include work on widely used theorem provers and languages (Lean, Idris) and on Cryptol, where he improved notebook integration and GHC compatibility. Comfortable across backend systems and editor integrations, he has a track record of improving developer UX through Emacs tooling and REPL features. He also taught dependent types at the university level, demonstrating an ability to translate advanced type theory into practical teaching and tooling. Colleagues rely on him for projects that sit at the intersection of programming languages research and production-quality software.
15 years of coding experience
10 years of employment as a software developer
Master's Degree, Software Development, Master's Degree, Software Development at IT-Universitetet i KøbenhavnPhD, PhD at IT-Universitetet i København / IT University of CopenhagenBachelor of Arts (B.A.), Philosophy, Bachelor of Arts (B.A.), Philosophy at University of IdahoHampshire CollegeExchange student, Spring Semester, Exchange student, Spring Semester at Danish Institute for Study Abroad
English, Danish, Swedish, Esperanto
Stackoverflow
2,277reputation
64kreached
7answers
0questions
shell
top-5%
autocomplete
top-1%
emacs
top-5%
bash
top-5%
Github Skills (33)
crypto10
editors10
parser10
text-editor10
autocomplete10
user-interface10
editor10
graphical-user-interface10
emacs-lisp10
human-interface10
compiler-design10
code-generation10
repr10
replit10
theorem-proving10
Programming languages (26)
Github contributions (5)
idris-lang/Idris-dev
Feb 2013 - May 2018
A Dependently Typed Functional Programming Language
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:1515 commits, 491 PRs, 303 pushes in 5 years 4 months
Contributions summary:David contributed to the development of the Idris compiler, specifically focusing on enhancing and maintaining the core language and its supporting infrastructure. Their contributions included fixing compilation problems, improving the pretty-printing of various constructs, and adding new features to the REPL. They demonstrated expertise in compiler internals, parser design, and code generation.
dependent-typesfunctional-programmingtype-theorylanguage-designlambda-calculus
GaloisInc/cryptol
Jan 2015 - Dec 2020
Cryptol: The Language of Cryptography
Role in this project:Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:4 reviews, 57 commits, 12 PRs in 5 years 11 months
Contributions summary:David primarily contributed to the Cryptol language implementation, particularly focusing on the notebook interface. They made improvements to the notebook build process and GHC compatibility, and integrated the iPython Haskell library for the notebook interface. Further work involved exporting functions for use as a library, and adding support for dumping tests, and addressing file writing errors.
cryptographyfhecrypto
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