Nathan Ward
Mojo Standard Library Engineer at Modular
Denver, Colorado, United States
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolNathan Ward is a systems-focused software engineer with 7 years of experience building high-performance C++, Rust, and Mojo software across game engines, robotics, finance, and infrastructure. Currently a Mojo Standard Library Engineer at Modular, he blends deep low-level skills—memory layout, multithreading, metaprogramming, and micro-optimizations—with practical production experience from companies like Tesla, Scythe Robotics, and Quantlab. Nathan has contributed to the well-known Bevy game engine by fixing undefined behavior, improving memory alignment, refactoring derive macros, and optimizing event systems, demonstrating an ability to find subtle correctness and performance wins. He holds an MS in Computer Science from CU Boulder and consistently gravitates toward language/runtime work and systems design rather than surface-level application code. Colleagues describe him as curious and methodical—equally comfortable chasing a miri-reported UB or redesigning a stdlib API for long-term safety and performance.
7 years of coding experience
5 years of employment as a software developer
High School Diploma, High School Diploma at Holy Family High SchoolMaster of Science - MS Computer Science, Master of Science - MS Computer Science at University of Colorado Boulder
Stackoverflow
17reputation
307reached
0answers
1question
Github Skills (18)
game-engine10
game-dev10
memory-management10
bevy10
performance-optimization10
rust10
game-development10
error-handling9
automated-tests8
data-structures8
data-structure8
algorithms8
algorithm8
software-design7
system-design7
Programming languages (4)
Github contributions (5)
bevyengine/bevy
Oct 2020 - Sep 2022
A refreshingly simple data-driven game engine built in Rust
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer & Systems Engineer
Back-end Developer & Systems EngineerContributions:600 reviews, 62 PRs, 905 comments in 1 year 11 months
Contributions summary:Nathan primarily focused on improving the core engine's stability and performance by addressing memory alignment issues and optimizing code. They fixed undefined behavior issues related to memory access in the `bevy_core/bytes` module, identified through `miri`. The user also refactored derive macros, particularly for handling generics in `TypeUuid`, `RenderResource`, and `Bytes`, and optimized the `Events` system for improved efficiency. Furthermore, they made several updates to the underlying dependencies, including `glam` and `hexasphere`, and implemented change detection mechanisms to provide a more performant system.
data-drivenbevygamedevrustgame-development
NathanSWard/GameTime
Feb 2021 - Mar 2021
Contributions:77 commits, 13 pushes in 28 days
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