Xiao Li
Director Of Engineering at Databricks
San Francisco, California, United States
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolXiao Li is a Director of Engineering at Databricks with over a decade of experience building high-performance distributed data systems and leading large, globally distributed teams. He oversees development of Apache Spark, Databricks Runtime, DB SQL and the infrastructure that enables production-grade performance, testing, and releases for the Lakehouse platform. A longtime Apache Spark committer and PMC member, Xiao combines deep systems-level engineering (query compiler, codegen, Spark Core, connectors) with hands-on contributions to Delta Lake testing and Spark website documentation. He has grown engineering orgs from individual teams to 50+ engineers while delivering measurable runtime speedups and enterprise-grade tooling. With a PhD in Computer Engineering and a track record of public technical talks, he bridges rigorous research thinking with pragmatic product execution. Notably, his work on Delta Lake testing and Spark SQL integrations helps ensure interoperability across engines like Presto, Flink and Trino, a detail that often lives behind the scenes but is critical to large-scale data ecosystems.
10 years of coding experience
12 years of employment as a software developer
BS (& MS) Computer Science, BS (& MS) Computer Science at Nanjing University of Science and TechnologyDoctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) Computer Engineering, Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) Computer Engineering at University of Florida
Github Skills (15)
scala10
javas10
content-management-system10
apache-spark10
big-data10
delta-lake10
content-management10
sql10
jdbc10
java10
documentation10
testing10
data-engineering9
api8
apidoc8
Programming languages (5)
Github contributions (5)
apache/spark
Dec 2015 - Jun 2020
Apache Spark - A unified analytics engine for large-scale data processing
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:83 reviews, 32 commits, 929 PRs in 4 years 7 months
Contributions summary:The user, gatorsmile, is primarily involved in enhancing and maintaining the Apache Spark SQL module, specifically within the context of data source implementations. Their contributions include implementing and improving features related to the parsing, creation, and management of data source tables, with a focus on JDBC and Hive metastore interactions. They have also made contributions to add unit tests to maintain the stability of the codebase. The contributions span across multiple areas of the project, with a focus on enhancing the functionality and stability of Spark SQL.
analyticspythondata-processingsqlapache
apache/spark-website
Mar 2018 - Oct 2020
Apache Spark Website
Role in this project:Technical Writer
Technical WriterContributions:12 reviews, 17 commits, 26 PRs in 2 years 7 months
Contributions summary:Xiao's contributions primarily involve updating and adding content to the Apache Spark website. This includes posting the agenda for various Spark+AI summits and updating the release notes for different Spark versions. The user's work focuses on keeping the community informed about upcoming events and software releases, indicating a role in content management and documentation.
pythonsqlapachebig-dataspark
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