Alexis Christoforides

Software engineer & consultant · Boston, MA

I build operating systems, language runtimes, and embedded hardware platforms — the kind of low-level work where you need someone who's comfortable reading a datasheet and a spec in the same afternoon.

Over the past fifteen years I've done this at Wilderness Labs, Microsoft, Xamarin, and TGen. I take on a small number of contract engagements each year — reach out if you have something interesting.

Expertise
Embedded & IoT systems
Hardware bringup, RTOS integration, hardware abstraction layers, OTA update infrastructure, and running managed runtimes on constrained hardware. I built Meadow.OS from scratch — a production embedded OS that brings .NET to microcontrollers.
Runtime & platform engineering
Deep .NET and Mono runtime work: JIT/AOT compilation, interop layers, CLR internals, porting managed code to new platforms. I spent several years as a core contributor to Mono, the open-source runtime that powered Xamarin.
Developer tooling & build systems
Build infrastructure, cross-platform packaging, and CI/CD for complex native projects. I built and maintained bockbuild, Mono's macOS build and packaging system, for several years.
Scientific computing & bioinformatics
Genomics pipelines, sequencing data analysis, and cancer mutation detection. I spent three years at TGen building this infrastructure, contributing to the 1000 Genomes Project, and co-authoring 41+ peer-reviewed papers cited over 11,000 times.
Experience
  1. 2018 — present Boston, MA

    OS Engineer Lead

    Wilderness Labs

    Led development of Meadow.OS — a full embedded operating system on NuttX RTOS that brings .NET to microcontrollers and SoC hardware. Responsible for the OS architecture, hardware abstraction layers, OTA update system, and the managed C# APIs that developers use to talk to hardware.

  2. 2015 — 2018 San Francisco, CA

    Software Engineer

    Microsoft (via Xamarin acquisition)

    Continued runtime work after Microsoft acquired Xamarin. Contributed to the Mono runtime, owned the bockbuild macOS packaging pipeline, and worked on Roslyn and F# tooling.

  3. 2013 — 2015 San Francisco, CA

    Software Engineer

    Xamarin

    Worked on the Mono project — the open-source .NET runtime underlying Xamarin's mobile SDK. Built and maintained the macOS distribution pipeline.

  4. 2010 — 2013 Phoenix, AZ

    Software Engineer & Bioinformatician

    TGen

    Built DNA sequencing pipelines and cancer mutation-detection tools for genomics research, including Seurat, a somatic mutation analysis tool for paired tumor/normal sequencing. Contributed to the 1000 Genomes Project.

Open source

mono/mono mono/bockbuild seurat compost mh Meadow.OS
Contact

I take on contract work in the areas above — typically project-based or short retainers. If you think there's a fit, I'd like to hear about it.

alexis@thenull.net
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