Mark Adams
Senior Systems Software Engineer - Frostbite Foundation
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Summary
👤
Senior🎓
Top SchoolMark Adams is a Senior Systems Software Engineer with over 20 years of experience specializing in cross-platform portability, low-level system libraries, and interoperability across Windows, macOS, Linux and consoles. He is particularly expert in C and assembly for x86/x64 and ARM64, and has a track record of debugging compiler and platform-level issues—including fixing incorrect vector code generation and enabling determinism in math libraries across architectures. At EA he led sanitizer deployments and root-caused subtle concurrency and determinism bugs, while at NVIDIA he improved shader compilation performance and mobile graphics conformance, contributing to high-profile projects like shaderc and glslang. He excels at auditing, re-architecting, and hardening codebases using static analysis, sanitizers, coverage, and safety processes such as ISO 26262, CERT C and MISRA C. Known for diving into unfamiliar code and producing standalone reproductions for compiler vendors, he combines deep systems expertise with pragmatic tooling and test infrastructure work. Based in Ottawa, he blends a rare mix of compiler/assembly-level problem solving with broad cross-platform production experience.
10 years of coding experience
20 years of employment as a software developer
Bachelors of Science, Honours with Distinction in Pure Mathematics, Bachelors of Science, Honours with Distinction in Pure Mathematics at Mount Allison UniversityMasters of Mathematics, Computer Science (Software Engineering & Distributed Systems), Masters of Mathematics, Computer Science (Software Engineering & Distributed Systems) at University of Waterloo
Github Skills (14)
spirv10
compiler10
gsl10
vulkan10
compiler-compiler10
c-language10
glsl10
cprogramming-language10
shader9
testing9
build-system9
error-handling9
debug8
debugging8
Programming languages (1)
Github contributions (5)
google/shaderc
Oct 2015 - Jan 2016
A collection of tools, libraries, and tests for Vulkan shader compilation.
Role in this project:
Backend Developer
Backend DeveloperContributions:5 commits, 5 PRs, 20 comments in 2 months
Contributions summary:Mark primarily contributed to the `shaderc` library, a tool for compiling Vulkan shaders. Their work involved implementing features to support different shader kinds like compute, geometry, tessellation control, and tessellation evaluation shaders. Furthermore, they added a function to retrieve SPIR-V version information and fixed compilation warnings in the VS2013 environment, indicating a focus on expanding and improving the library's functionality and compatibility. The user also introduced an API to specify the target shader environment for better error/warning generation.
compilationvulkanspirv-crosscompilerspirv
KhronosGroup/glslang
Oct 2015 - Feb 2016
Khronos-reference front end for GLSL/ESSL, partial front end for HLSL, and a SPIR-V generator.
Role in this project:Software Engineer (Compiler/Shader Development)
Software Engineer (Compiler/Shader Development)Contributions:8 commits, 8 PRs, 1 comment in 4 months
Contributions summary:Mark primarily contributed to improving the codebase's robustness and compatibility. Their work focused on addressing compiler warnings and errors, particularly those arising from newer GCC and VS2013 versions. They replaced vulnerable `sprintf()` usages with safer `snprintf()` calls and fixed issues related to strict aliasing and function prototypes. Additionally, the user made changes to the SPIR-V header and addressed warnings related to assignment within while loops.
glslangvalidatorpartialesslkhronoscompiler
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