Peter Boncz
Software Engineer at Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica
Amsterdam, North Holland, Netherlands
Summary
👤
Senior🎓
Top SchoolPeter Boncz is a veteran software engineer and academic with 25+ years spearheading analytical database systems, best known for pioneering column stores and vectorized query execution through projects like MonetDB and VectorWise. He blends hands-on core database development (recently contributing serialization and stats handling to DuckDB) with leadership as a CWI research group leader, VU professor, and serial co-founder of multiple spin-offs that commercialized CWI research. Peter has a strong track record in turning research into products and companies, managing EU and national projects, and chairing major conferences (SIGMOD/PODS, CIDR) and journal editorial roles. Currently on sabbatical at cloud-focused startup MotherDuck, he architects hybrid client/cloud query execution while maintaining advisory roles with industry players like Databricks. He takes pride in mentoring students and building Amsterdam into a data-systems hub, combining deep systems insight with a pragmatic eye for valorization and real-world impact.
25 years of coding experience
8 years of employment as a software developer
M.Sc. computer science (parallel computing), M.Sc. computer science (parallel computing) at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU Amsterdam)Ph.D. Computer Science (database architecture), Ph.D. Computer Science (database architecture) at University of Amsterdamresearch assistant ingeneria de sistemas, research assistant ingeneria de sistemas at Universidad de SalamancaStad en Lande College (Huizen)
English, Spanish, German, French, Dutch
Stackoverflow
966reputation
9kreached
1answer
0questions
compiler-optimization
top-5%
optimization
top-5%
Github Skills (15)
databases10
c-language10
cprogramming-language10
sql10
relational-databases10
sql-database10
database10
analytics9
optimization9
serialization9
embedded-database9
data-serialization9
compiler-optimization9
debug8
debugging8
Programming languages (8)
Github contributions (5)
duckdb/duckdb
Jul 2018 - Mar 2025
DuckDB is an analytical in-process SQL database management system
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:19 reviews, 19 PRs, 32 comments in 6 years 9 months
Contributions summary:Peter contributed to DuckDB's core functionality by implementing serialization and deserialization methods for `NodeStatistics`, enabling the transmission of table and column statistics. They also modified `BaseStatistics` to retain distinct count estimates. Further commits show improvements after review, and the user enabled stacktrace printing on crashes during testing to aid debugging. Their changes focused on improving data storage and debugging capabilities.
management-systemanalyticsduckdbmysqlembedded-database
peterboncz/duckdb
Feb 2023 - Mar 2025
DuckDB is an in-process SQL OLAP Database Management System
Contributions:2 PRs, 90 pushes, 15 branches in 2 years 1 month
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