About Me

I earned my bachelor’s degree in computer science from Shanghai Jiao Tong University and a master’s degree from Carnegie Mellon University. Currently, I am a Systems Software Engineer at Neon (acquired by Databricks).

I go by any combination of Alex, Chi, and Zhang. You can call me Alex Chi, Chi Zhang, Alex Chi Z., Chi (Alex) Zhang, or simply Chi.

During my undergraduate and graduate studies, I specialized in building system software, with a particular focus on database systems. I developed AgateDB during my internship at PingCAP, worked on TerarkDB for Zoned Namespace SSDs at ByteDance, and contributed to the early development of RisingWave at RisingWave Labs (formerly Singularity Data) as a founding member of the company. In the summer of 2023, I interned at Neon, which offers fully managed Postgres services, and have continued working there as a full-time engineer after graduation.

I’m passionate about engaging with the open-source community. Currently, I’m a maintainer for the TiKV project and also manage several widely used projects such as SJTUG mirror and SJTUThesis in the SJTUG community. To help more students learn about database systems, I co-developed an educational OLAP database called RisingLight. The SQL layer of RisingLight was later integrated into BusTub, the course project for CMU’s 15-445/645 Database Systems class, transforming BusTub into a functional SQL database system.

I’m also interested in developing educational resources on database systems. I have created two tutorials for using Rust in data-intensive applications: type-exercise-in-rust teaches how to build a vectorized expression evaluation framework within database systems, while mini-lsm provides guidance on building an LSM-tree storage engine. I served as a teaching assistant for CMU-DB’s BusTub database system for three semesters, where I designed the SQL query frontend for the query processing project and the MVCC project based on HyPer. With my experience with the BusTub system, I authored the write-you-a-vector-db tutorial on adding vector capabilities to a relational database system. Recently, I developed a course on building an LLM serving infrastructure called tiny-llm.

Looking ahead, I am always seeking opportunities to build reliable and efficient systems that excite me and inspire people.