Tobias Nießen
Researcher at Technische Universität Wien
Vienna, Austria
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top School
Top expert inFull-stack JavaScript Development
Tobias Nießen is a researcher and PhD student at TU Wien with 11 years of software and research experience, currently working at the intersection of systems, security, and programming language tooling. He chairs technical stewardship for Node.js while contributing to core open-source projects such as libgit2 and OpenSSL, and has practical systems experience from Cloudflare’s serverless platform. Tobias combines a strong theoretical background with hands-on engineering—evidenced by bug fixes, test improvements, and new API features across high-profile repos—and has a track record of vulnerability discovery with multiple CVEs to his name. He has two master’s degrees and has held research and teaching roles across Europe and Canada, including internships at Microsoft and research collaborations with IBM. Based in Vienna, he now works on security and logic-driven systems research at MPI-SP and TU Wien, blending academic rigor with production-grade engineering. An unexpected detail: alongside cryptography and WebAssembly work he has contributed subtle reliability fixes (timers, memory management, detached-buffer handling) that improve cross-platform robustness.
11 years of coding experience
4 years of employment as a software developer
Vienna University of TechnologyHigh School Diploma, High School Diploma at Erich Kästner Gymnasium LaatzenMaster's degree, Research-based Master of Computer Science, Master's degree, Research-based Master of Computer Science at University of New BrunswickMaster of Science - MS, Computer Science, Master of Science - MS, Computer Science at Leibniz Universität Hannover
German, English
Github Skills (40)
git10
debug10
javascript10
c-language10
ssl10
tls1210
testing10
c1110
tls1310
c1710
mtls10
api-documentation10
openssl10
cryptography10
libtls10
Programming languages (25)
Github contributions (5)
nodejs/node-addon-api
Oct 2019 - Jun 2022
Module for using Node-API from C++
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer / Test Automation Engineer
Back-end Developer / Test Automation EngineerContributions:3 reviews, 21 commits, 20 PRs in 2 years 8 months
Contributions summary:Tobias primarily contributed to the Node.js addon API by implementing new features, fixing code format issues, and improving the existing functionality. They added a `RunScript` feature to the API and included tests to ensure its proper functioning. Furthermore, the user addressed code formatting inconsistencies in the test files and updated the `ArrayBuffer` class to disable caching when dealing with detached buffers, preventing potential errors.
apicppnode-apinodejsnode
openssl/openssl
Sep 2018 - Aug 2022
TLS/SSL and crypto library
Role in this project:Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:1 review, 15 commits, 11 PRs in 3 years 11 months
Contributions summary:Tobias primarily contributed to the OpenSSL project by modifying and improving existing code related to cryptographic algorithms and tests. Their work involved enhancing the CCM mode, allowing for tag specification after AAD and adding corresponding test cases. They also addressed issues related to RSA-PSS keys and performed code refactoring for internal structures, all within the context of the project's core cryptographic functionalities. Additionally, the user made minor corrections to documentation and option descriptions.
crypto-librarycryptographyssltlscrypto
Find and Hire Top DevelopersWe’ve analyzed the programming source code of over 60 million software developers on GitHub and scored them by 50,000 skills. Sign-up on Prog,AI to search for software developers.