David Given
Senior Software Engineer at Google
Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolDavid Given is a seasoned senior software engineer based in Zurich with 22 years of experience building reliable systems and tooling across product and infrastructure roles. Currently at Google as a Senior Software Engineer and Site Reliability Engineer, he blends deep systems debugging and long-term operational thinking to keep large-scale services robust. His open-source work shows a pragmatic low-level expertise—from enhancing FUZIX, a minimalist OS where he fixed C/cc65 type issues and core utilities, to evolving WordGrinder into a polished, SDL-backed word processor with UI and text-rendering improvements. Comfortable across back-end, full-stack, and systems code, he has a knack for quietly improving developer ergonomics and longstanding codebases. Educated at the University of St Andrews, he brings both academic grounding and decades of hands-on craftsmanship. Colleagues would note his preference for small, elegant solutions that make complex systems easier to maintain.
22 years of coding experience
17 years of employment as a software developer
University of St AndrewsGlenalmond College
Github Skills (23)
c-programming10
lua10
system-programming9
debug9
debugging9
operating-system9
compiler8
file-processing8
file-handling8
file-access8
markdown-it8
fileio8
markdown8
sdl7
opengl5
Programming languages (21)
Github contributions (5)
EtchedPixels/FUZIX
Mar 2015 - Jul 2022
FuzixOS: Because Small Is Beautiful
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:3 reviews, 482 commits, 59 PRs in 7 years 5 months
Contributions summary:David contributed to the FuzixOS project, a small, beautiful operating system. They primarily focused on debugging and improving the C code, identifying and fixing type issues to ensure compatibility with the cc65 compiler. The user also added features to core system utilities.
unlocksanitizationswaporigamibug-reporting
davidgiven/wordgrinder
Oct 2007 - Dec 2022
A word processor which gets the hell out of your way and lets you get some work done.
Role in this project:Full-stack Developer
Full-stack DeveloperContributions:29 releases, 3 reviews, 1019 commits in 15 years 4 months
Contributions summary:David's commits primarily focus on the word processor's functionality, particularly in adding features, bug fixes, and user interface improvements. They implemented the table of contents feature, the ability to add, remove, and utilize a custom dictionary, and incorporated smart quote functionality. Furthermore, they made significant improvements to the user interface and text rendering in the SDL-based implementation, including enhancements to the Windows console version, and a shift to a frame-at-a-time writing approach with the addition of different style and text rendering capabilities.
word-processorhell
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