Julia Evans
Explaining Computer Things at wizard zines
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolJulia Evans is a prolific software engineer, writer, and educator based in Montreal with 15 years of experience explaining and building developer tools. She blends deep back-end and performance work—contributions to projects like rbspy (Ruby profiler), IPython/nbconvert, and DataFrames.jl—with approachable technical writing published at jvns.ca. Her portfolio spans systems-level Rust and profiling work (dnspeep, rbspy) to practical data tooling and interactive notebooks (pandas-cookbook, nbconvert), demonstrating both production-grade engineering and pedagogy. Julia’s work often focuses on observability and reproducibility: improving sampling accuracy, notebook execution/export, and readable data summaries. As founder of Wizard Zines, she pairs open-source impact with accessible explanations that help engineers learn complex topics quickly. Her background includes MSc and BSc degrees from McGill, reflecting a research-informed approach to tooling and documentation.
15 years of coding experience
Bachelor of Science (BSc), Bachelor of Science (BSc) at McGill University
Stackoverflow
281reputation
8kreached
6answers
2questions
Github Skills (45)
notebook10
pcap10
python10
jupyter10
data-set10
testing10
pandas10
git-repository10
ipython10
datatable10
data-model10
ruby10
performance-optimization10
nbconvert10
profiling10
Programming languages (24)
Github contributions (5)
jvns/pandas-cookbook
Dec 2013 - Aug 2020
Recipes for using Python's pandas library
Role in this project:
Full-stack Developer
Full-stack DeveloperContributions:80 commits, 14 PRs, 26 pushes in 6 years 8 months
Contributions summary:Julia primarily contributed to the development of the IPython notebook by adding chapters and content. Their work involved creating and integrating content within the notebook environment. They demonstrated proficiency in implementing code cells, adding formatting, and structuring information within the notebook format. Additionally, the user showcased skills in applying CSS styles to enhance the notebook's visual presentation.
pandaspython
jvns/dnspeep
Mar 2021 - Jun 2022
spy on the DNS queries your computer is making
Role in this project:Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:33 commits, 7 PRs, 43 pushes in 1 year 2 months
Contributions summary:Julia primarily worked on the `dnspeep` project, a tool for monitoring DNS queries. Their contributions focused on implementing the core functionality of the tool. This included writing Rust code to capture and parse DNS packets, format the output, and handle different DNS record types. The user also added features such as error handling, command-line options, and the ability to read from pcap files.
dns
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