Karol Herbst
Software Engineer at Red Hat
Hamburg, Germany
Summary
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SeniorKarol Herbst is a seasoned software engineer based in Hamburg with 14 years of experience and a strong focus on graphics, compilers, and build systems. As a long-time co-maintainer of the Nouveau OpenGL driver and an active contributor to Freedesktop projects since 2015, he combines kernel/driver-level expertise with user-space tooling. At Red Hat he develops robust infrastructure and compiler-related components, contributing upstream to notable projects like Meson and the SPIRV-LLVM-Translator to improve C/Rust interoperability and SPIR-V↔LLVM translations. His work repeatedly targets subtle cross-toolchain issues—such as Rust bindgen integration and accurate I/O encoding in translators—demonstrating attention to correctness across complex toolchains. Equally comfortable in low-level graphics internals and build-system ergonomics, he brings pragmatic open-source craftsmanship to challenging compatibility problems.
14 years of coding experience
3 years of employment as a software developer
Github Skills (30)
spirv10
c-language10
python10
build-system10
c-programming10
linux-kernel10
compiler-options10
kernel10
device-driver10
compiler-construction10
compile10
mesonbuild10
compiler10
rust10
cprogramming-language10
Programming languages (17)
Github contributions (5)
KhronosGroup/SPIRV-LLVM-Translator
Apr 2018 - Aug 2020
A tool and a library for bi-directional translation between SPIR-V and LLVM IR
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer / Compiler Engineer
Back-end Developer / Compiler EngineerContributions:6 reviews, 27 commits, 12 PRs in 2 years 5 months
Contributions summary:Karol primarily contributed to the SPIR-V to LLVM IR translator, focusing on improving the compilation process and the accuracy of the translation. They addressed issues related to compilation with specific LLVM versions, implemented features for encoding and decoding input/output variables used in entry points, and incorporated the CallGraph pass for dependency analysis. Additionally, the user updated test files to ensure the validity of the translated SPIR-V code and implemented the GroupWaitEvents without the Group capability.
llvm-irspirv
mesonbuild/meson
Jan 2021 - Oct 2025
The Meson Build System
Role in this project:Backend Developer
Backend DeveloperContributions:5 reviews, 3 PRs, 33 comments in 4 years 10 months
Contributions summary:Karol contributed to the Meson Build System by fixing issues related to Rust configuration parsing and the stripping of system include directories. Their work involved modifying Python scripts within the build system to correctly handle compiler flags and dependencies, specifically addressing compatibility issues with Rust's bindgen tool. The user also implemented functionality for generating static inline wrappers within the Meson build process, enhancing its capabilities for projects using C and Rust interoperability.
build-system
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