Jesse Williamson
Software Engineer, Ceph Object Storage at IBM
Seattle, Washington, United States
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolJesse Williamson is a seasoned software engineer with 12+ years building and optimizing distributed storage and database systems, currently working on Ceph Object Storage at IBM from Seattle. He has deep C++ expertise demonstrated by significant open-source contributions to the MongoDB C++ driver (including KMIP/CSFLE, op_msg migration, and client-side encryption) and long-standing work upstream in Ceph while at SUSE. Jesse’s background spans high-performance systems at CERN and Boeing R&D, where he prototyped next-generation data-sharing platforms and evaluated RPC, container, and filesystem technologies. He combines low-level systems engineering—kernel drivers, concurrency primitives, and performance-critical buffer work—with pragmatic API and exception-handling redesigns that improve correctness and maintainability. As a consultant and mentor, he balances hands-on engineering with architectural guidance and training in Modern C++. An interesting throughline: he often moves proprietary or legacy components to standard-library and open-source solutions, improving portability and long-term sustainability.
12 years of coding experience
18 years of employment as a software developer
M.Sc. Mathematical and Computer Sciences, M.Sc. Mathematical and Computer Sciences at Southern Oregon University
Github Skills (13)
c-language10
database-driver10
exception-handling10
cprogramming-language10
mongodb10
bson10
mongodb-database10
encryption9
testing9
encrypt9
catch29
crypt9
documentation7
Programming languages (3)
Github contributions (5)
mongodb/mongo-cxx-driver
Jul 2021 - Mar 2022
C++ Driver for MongoDB
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer / Database Engineer
Back-end Developer / Database EngineerContributions:99 reviews, 56 commits, 29 PRs in 8 months
Contributions summary:Jesse primarily contributes to the C++ driver for MongoDB, focusing on implementing and refining features related to database interactions and exception handling. They modified the documentation to provide clarity around specific database functions, such as `count_documents()`, and updated error handling by changing exception types. Furthermore, the user integrated service ID support in database events and also updated the project's Catch2 dependency and implemented support for read concern snapshot, which improved the overall functionality and stability of the driver. They also added support for client side encryption and keyvault.
drivernosqlc-plus-plus-17cppbson
chardan/ceph
Mar 2016 - Mar 2025
Ceph is a distributed object, block, and file storage platform
Contributions:3 PRs, 650 pushes, 90 branches in 9 years 1 month
file-storagentfsazure-blob-storagecephglusterfs
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