Joe Petrowski
Polkadot Runtime Function Lead at Parity Technologies
Zug, Switzerland
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolJoe Petrowski is a blockchain systems leader with nine years of experience architecting and shipping Polkadot and Substrate runtime components, now serving as Polkadot Runtime Function Lead at Parity Technologies. He has led runtime, XCM, and parachain efforts at Web3 Foundation and Parity, contributing code and design to flagship projects like paritytech/cumulus, polkadot, and substrate. Joe excels at reducing technical debt and improving maintainability while delivering complex runtime changes—everything from removing Sudo and enabling DOT-over-XCM to splitting core client functions for safer block import. Based in Zug, he combines a rigorous engineering background (BS in Aerospace from RPI) with a history of building infrastructure and integrations across Kusama and Polkadot, and an uncommon past as an elite cyclist and co-founder of an Ethereum mining operation.
9 years of coding experience
5 years of employment as a software developer
Bachelor of Science (B.S.) Aerospace Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering, Bachelor of Science (B.S.) Aerospace Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
English, French, German
Stackoverflow
165reputation
8kreached
1answer
4questions
Github Skills (38)
substrate10
back-end-development10
apidoc10
clientside10
runtime-configuration10
polkadot-js10
api10
front-end-development10
blockchain10
rest-api10
webclient10
nodejs10
rust10
para10
polkadot10
Programming languages (10)
Github contributions (5)
paritytech/cumulus
Jun 2021 - Jan 2023
Write Parachains on Substrate
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:1 release, 437 reviews, 86 commits in 1 year 8 months
Contributions summary:Joe primarily contributed to the `paritytech/cumulus` repository, which focuses on writing parachains on Substrate. Their work involved modifying runtime configurations and XCM configurations, particularly in the context of asset management and governance features like removing Sudo and enabling DOT-over-XCM. Several commits involved updating runtime documentation. There are also contributions to a new Collectives Parachain, which required significant changes to the codebase, as well as contributions in different parachains runtimes such as Statemint, Statemint, and Westmint.
substrate
paritytech/substrate
Jan 2019 - Nov 2022
Substrate: The platform for blockchain innovators
Role in this project:Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:219 reviews, 64 commits, 37 PRs in 3 years 11 months
Contributions summary:Joe primarily focused on modifying and refactoring the client-side code, particularly concerning block execution and import. Their work involved splitting functions, resolving type errors, and addressing borrow problems within the core client module. They also worked on documentation improvements for the balances module, including adding rustdoc and readme files, clarifying traits, and updating examples. Furthermore, the user converted all UK spelling to US within the repository.
blockchainsubstrateparitypolkadotnode
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