Michael Ash
Software Engineer at Apple
Alexandria, Virginia, United States
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolMichael Ash is a seasoned software engineer with 16 years focused on macOS and iOS systems work, currently contributing to Apple and previously at Plausible Labs and Rogue Amoeba. He specializes in low-level runtime and memory management—contributing to high-profile open-source projects like Swift (fixing reflection, deallocation, and concurrency issues) and Swift Foundation/LLDB interoperability—while also maintaining deep Objective-C runtime expertise via his MAObjCRuntime work. Comfortable across the full stack, he builds tooling and frameworks that bridge Swift and Objective-C and has a habit of quoting the C standard in technical discussions. He runs a well-read programming blog and maintains his own Python-powered website, reflecting a constant appetite for experimentation (except with pointy things). Based in Alexandria, VA, he brings rigorous systems thinking from an MS in Computer Science and a track record of shipping reliable runtime and framework-level fixes.
15 years of coding experience
6 years of employment as a software developer
BS, Computer Science, BS, Computer Science at University of Wisconsin-MilwaukeeMS, Computer Science, MS, Computer Science at Université d'Orléans
Stackoverflow
91reputation
2kreached
1answer
0questions
Github Skills (18)
objective-c10
reflection10
runtimes10
python10
foundation10
memory-management10
foundation-sites10
reflections10
error-handling10
swift10
concurrency10
scripting9
operation9
unit-testing9
mergetool9
Programming languages (7)
Github contributions (5)
mikeash/MAObjCRuntime
Sep 2010 - Aug 2015
ObjC wrapper for ObjC runtime API
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:36 commits, 1 PR, 1 push in 5 years
Contributions summary:Michael primarily focused on implementing Objective-C runtime API wrappers and utility methods within the `maobjcruntime` repository. They implemented features to create subclasses, manage methods, manipulate instance variables, and query class information. These contributions extended the functionality of the Objective-C runtime by adding features to inspect and manipulate class and method data.
apiobjc-runtimeruntimeobjcwrapper
swiftlang/swift
Jun 2022 - Jan 2023
The Swift Programming Language
Role in this project:Backend Developer
Backend DeveloperContributions:918 reviews, 60 commits, 1097 PRs in 7 months
Contributions summary:Michael primarily contributed to the Swift programming language repository. Their work focused on fixing bugs related to reflection, including issues with deallocation of string memory and recursion limits. They addressed problems with concurrency, such as implementing dispatch cooperative queues and adding register-specific entrypoints for retain/release calls. Additionally, they fixed issues in the runtime and various tests, with a specific focus on handling memory and object lifetime during deinitialization.
swift-programmingswift-programming-languageprogramming-languageswift
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