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Name: Alexandre MUTEL
Age: Born in 1973
Situation: Married, 2 children
Location: Grenoble, France
Email: alexandre_mutel at live.com
Social medias: @xoofx on Mastodon
GitHub: https://github.com/xoofx/
Latest update: May 20th, 2024

With over 30 years of passionate software development experience, I have consistently excelled in challenging projects across diverse technologies, including low-level coding, server-side applications, language parsers, compilers, and game engines. My expertise lies in leading complex systems, enhancing their designs, and empowering users through strong technical leadership. I am dedicated to improving direction, performance, quality, extensibility, maintainability, simplicity, and usability in all projects.

In recent years, I have successfully led larger teams, both technically and from a management perspective, establishing good engineering practices and fostering a respectful and empathetic work environment.

I'm currently working at Unity Technologies.

Experience

Director, Software Engineering

Oct 2021 - Present (2 years 8 months)
Company: Unity Technologies
Location: Remote, Grenoble Area, France

Key Responsibilities:

  • Led the C#/.NET Tech Group, integrating multiple teams (C# Compilation, Scripting, .NET Runtimes & Integration, IL2CPP, Burst Native Compiler) to standardize and innovate with .NET technologies within the Unity platform.
  • Managed 2-3 teams, each with a manager, comprising a total of 25-30 software engineers. Collaborated with principal and staff engineers, defining the strategy and direction for the group's future.
  • Worked closely with the Technical Program Manager to improve team planning and the Product Manager to enhance product approaches.
  • Oversaw the execution of major technical stack evolutions, negotiated team resourcing, and presented progress to key stakeholders (VP, SVP). Wrote Objective Key Results (OKR) for the group.
  • Established and maintained team rituals, organized bi-weekly .NET Group All Hands meetings, and led a team-building event in Copenhagen.
  • Conducted weekly 1-1 meetings with direct reports and skip-level meetings, engaged in bi-annual internal engagement survey reviews, and evaluated yearly compensation cycles.

Senior Engineering Manager

Sep 2020 - Oct 2021 (1 year 2 months)
Company: Unity Technologies
Location: Remote, Grenoble Area, France

Key Responsibilities:

  • Led the Scripting and Burst Teams, focused on C# Compilation, .NET Runtime Integration, and Burst Native Compiler.
  • Managed 2 teams of 10-12 engineers, defining directions and clarifying scopes.
  • Improved planning, documentation, and engineering practices, set up team rituals and 1-1 meetings, and conducted quarterly performance reviews.
  • Collaborated with the Technical Program Manager on JIRA setup, hired new engineers, and facilitated feedback sessions.
  • Developed key talents into new technical/management positions, engaged with stakeholders, and evaluated yearly compensation cycles.
  • Prepared the formation of the .NET Tech Group by integrating several teams.

Technical Lead

Nov 2016 - Sep 2020 (3 years 11 months)
Company: Unity Technologies
Location: Remote, Grenoble Area, France

Key Responsibilities:

  • Designed, developed, and shipped the Burst compiler to translate .NET/C#/IL code into efficient native code using the LLVM compiler.
  • Led the full design and development of the compiler, collaborating with the SLEEF OSS project for deterministic floating point support, for example here
  • Expanded compiler functionality to major platforms (Desktops, Mobile, Consoles), mentored and hired engineers, and built a cohesive team.
  • Organized development priorities, 1-1 meetings, knowledge-sharing sessions, and annual reviews.
  • Presented Burst technology at conferences (Unite 2019, DotNext 2019 - video here)
  • Authored comprehensive internal documentation and user documentation, and contributed to blog posts on Burst compiler updates (1,2).

Lead Developer of several OSS projects

September 2010 - Today (14 years)
Technologies: C#, C/C++, Direct3D11, MsBuild, ASP.NET, HTML+JavaScript
Platforms: Windows

For the past years and during my spare time, I have been the author and developer of several open-source projects:

  • SharpDX is the .NET Wrapper for the full DirectX API, first released in November 2010, .NET API generated directly from C++ DirectX headers, using a "sophisticated" IL rewriting at that time, and one of the largest code generator from C++ to C# developed so far. This project has been used in hundreds of commercial projects and games.
  • Markdig A Markdown processor for .NET, a fully extensible implementation of the CommonMark standard with excellent performance, both in terms of speed, and GC pressure. This is one of the best Markdown processor, all languages combined, that is implemented with a genuine extensible architecture and provides excellent performance. I'm also a contributor of the Markdown Editor for Visual Studio.
  • babelmark 3 A website I developed to compare different Markdown implementations (including Markdig)
  • NUglify I forked the project Microsoft Ajax Minifier, ported it to the .NET Core/Standard platform, and developed a full HTML5 parser and minifier for it.
  • Scriban I developed a fast, powerful and lightweight text templating language and engine for .NET with the goal to use it for a static website generator.
  • SharpScss I developed a small pinvoke .NET wrapper around libsass to convert SCSS to CSS
  • GitRocketFilter I developed this super fast alternative to git-filter-branch, powerful command line tool to rewrite git commit and branches powered by Roslyn and LibGit2Sharp, 100x times faster than the original git-filter-branch
  • SharpYaml A YAML parser (this is a fork) with focus on adding better platform support, performance and a versatile override system. This project was used in Xenko as the main serialization infrastructure for design time assets.
  • SharpDiff A diff library for .NET with added support for a diff3 ways on .NET object graph. This project was used in Xenko to develop the templating/prefab system.
  • SharpRazor A simple wrapper around the templating Razor Engine
  • SharpCLABot An ASP.NET application providing CLA bot for github projects, hostable on Azure
  • SharpDoc A documentation generator for .NET, that was used to generate early version of SharpDX and Xenko .NET API documentation.

Lead Software Architect on a Game Engine

June 2011 - April 2016 (5 years)
Company: Silicon Studio, R&D
Location: Tokyo, Japan
Technologies: C#, C/C++, HLSL/GLSL, Direct3D11, GCN/PS4, ASP.NET, HTML+JavaScript, PHP
Infrastructure: MsBuild, git, svn, Jira, Confluence, TeamCity
Platforms: Windows, Android, iOS, PS4
Team Size: 5-10 people

I have been prototyping, designing and developing a C# game engine called xenko My work spanned from diversified aspects of the development of this product, including:

  • Co-design and development of a powerful object oriented shading language based on HLSL providing class inheritance, composition, and automatic varying attributes detection across GPU pipeline stages.
  • Development of an extensible HLSL parser and semantic analysis
  • Development of a HLSL to GLSL converter used as part of the SDK of a major console maker
  • General project gardening including bug fixes and code reviews
  • Mentoring developers in the team
  • Maintenance and development of several satellite open source projects that has been used by the engine (SharpDX, SharpYaml, SharpDiff...)
  • Design and implementation of the initial Graphics api ported from SharpDX toolkit
  • Overall optimizations on many parts of the engine (e.g entity components system, .NET assembly IL rewriting...etc), including build optimizations (e.g execution server for accelerating assets compilation)
  • Development of the msbuild infrastructure for the whole project
  • Development of multiple shading effects used in different demos showed at the GDC (volumetric light shafts, heat shimmering, GPU particle sorting...)
  • Design and implementation of a core post effect system including dev of some specifics fx (tone mapping, bloom...)
  • Design and development of a full Direct3D11 emulation layer written in C++ around the PS4 GCN API to facilitate the porting of Yebis post effect to the PS4
  • Development of a gamma correct full asset pipeline, from texture assets handling to rendering on the screen.
  • Design and development of a Physically based material system, supporting layered materials with multi-BRDF (pluggable)
  • Design and implementation of the scene graphics compositor to render a scene graph into multiple render targets
  • Design and implementation of the asset management system, storage (including fork of yaml parser/serializer SharpYaml), compilation, asset templating, advanced/nested prefabs and diff 3 ways on an object graph, package system.
  • Design and implementation of the full packaging, distribution and installer of the engine using nuget for the infrastructure
  • Design and implementation of the metric system, with an ASP.NET server to collect the data
  • Design and development of an ASP.NET server to handle user CLA on github
  • Development of the web servers (CMS joomla and migration to Jekyll), main writer of the 2 first original websites
  • Writing many parts of the user documentation
  • Management, deployment of all our ASP.NET servers on a dedicated machine and port to the Azure platform
  • Participation to the communication to the management about the progress on the project, the technical problems and challenges ahead...etc.
  • Participation to the planning of the project

Software Architect, Project Leader, Developer and Support

June 1997 - June 2006 (9 years)
Company: Societe Generale - IT Equity Derivatives Trading Markets
Location: Paris, France
Technologies: Java, J2EE, C/C++, Corba, SQL, Sybase Database, Sybase EventBroker, Tibco, Oracle OLAP Database, HTTP, HTML, Perl, Unix shells
Infrastructure: MsBuild, git, rcs, clearcase, perforce
Platforms: Windows, Sun Solaris, Linux

I have been a lead developer on numerous challenging projects.

Software Architect: Prototyping new technologies

December 2005 - June 2007 (1.5 years)
Team Size: 15

During this period, I have contributed to study the integration of several technologies for frontend applications, including the challenge to aggregate efficiently trading positions using an Oracle OLAP Database.

Software Architect: redesigning of the Profit&Loss application for the J2EE Platform

April 2003 - December 2004 (1.5 years)
Team Size: 15

Part of a large project (120+ people) aiming at redesigning key components around the Profit&Loss application, I was directly involved in:

  • Designing the migration from a legacy C++ application to a new Java J2EE infrastructure, working with an external J2EE Business solution called JRisk.
  • Technical follow up and mentoring with the team to ensure that implementation details and problems are retro-feedback to the global design of the migration
  • Coordination with other architects and teams, participating to technical committees

Senior Software Developer for the integration of CFD products

October 2002 - March 2003 (6 months)
Team Size: 8

Lead developer to incorporate an external solution called Calypso (Java application) and develop the integration of a financial product called CFD (Contract For Difference). Integration with existing legacy systems (front-office, middle office, back office).

Project Leader / Software Architect for a distributed data system

April 1999 - September 2002 (3.5 years)
Team Size: 5-8

Started as a prototype in a project where the code was mostly a large C/C++ application handling the Profit&Loss, Risk Analysis for the Equity derivatives. The goal of the project was to provide a distributed data system on top of an existing central database, to allow local and faster data access to different applications. The service had to run 24h/365 and was deployed around the world (Paris, NY, London, Tokyo). I have received feedback that this system was still in production in 2015.

  • Early prototype of a Java server using Corba as a middleware
  • Design and development of a system to synchronize the output of the replication of a Sybase database, plugged into an EventBroker to notify asynchronously the Java data server to update their cache (A Sybase representative told me that It was the first time a team was pushing such an advanced technique with their product)
  • In order to notify the servers with updates, we have evaluated different low level network methods (UDP multicasting) and have opted for Tibco RendezVous as our lightweight network messaging system.
  • Development of an ActiveX plugin automatically generated from Java code in order to provide a end-user control accessible from Excel. The generator was also able to generate a full HTML/CHM documentation from Java source files. This technology was much more efficient than the existing solutions provided by Sun at this time.
  • Provide assistance to other applications to use this service.
  • Management of the project and technical follow-up with the team.

1st Level Support - Trading Floor

January 1998 - April 1999 (1.5 years)
Company: Societe Generale - IT Equity Derivatives Trading Markets
Location: New-York, US

As part of my duty for the French military service, I had an opportunity to work in New-York as a 1st level support of a critical application for traders, working directly with them on the trading floor. The application consisted of multiple client side applications and a centralized database with various pricing servers running located in Paris. I was also responsible to provide local IT support (e.g debugging network printers on a Sun servers) and development for the traders (advanced excel macros, specially for basket trading)

1st Level Support and Developer

June 1997 - December 1997 (6 months)
Company: Societe Generale - IT Equity Derivatives Trading Markets
Location: Paris, France

Before going to New-York, I had to train and learn all the different applications and system I would have to support there and I have also been able to actively participate to many development fronts:

  • Part of the development effort to bring a large C++ application into production for regulatory purposes (Value At Risk 99)
  • Full port of a Solaris Pricing server to the Windows NT Platform, actively used after by the Exotic desks
  • Design and development of a monitoring server with an HTML front-end to provide health dashboard of the different database, replication services and pricing servers running.

Developer (internship)

May 1996 - September 1996 (5 months)
Company: IBM
Location: La Gaude, France
Technologies: C++, ISDN Protocols, HTTP servers, HTML

I joined a team that was actively developing the ISDN network stack for the IBM 2220 Nways Broadband Switch. I have developed an application to perform checks of the protocol. The application was producing a HTML report with a web server to easily verify visually the correctness of the protocol implementation. With this tool, I have been able to identify some problems and helped the team to debug and fix some bugs.

Personal Projects

Demomaking - PC

June 2007 - June 2010 (3 years)
Technologies: C/C++, Assembly x86
Platform: Windows

I got caught back into my early passion when I was a teenager. I participated to the demogroup Frequency where I gave a bit of my spare time and experience to help in the making of some intros.

I developed a 4k intro called Ergon, using the raymarching technique. This intro finished 3rd place at Breakpoint 2010.

Backpacking World Tour

January 2004 - November 2004 (11 months)

While working at Societe Generale, I took a sabbatical year to do a backpacking trip around the world, all on my own. I spent 11 months in Africa (Burkina Faso, Mali, Benin, Togo, Ghana), South-America (Peru, Bolivia, Argentine, Chili), Isla de Pasqua, Tahiti, Australia, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Nepal and India. While traveling I was actively writing and updating my website diteoo.com (In French, it means "Where are you?")
This travel has considerably transformed my vision of life.

Realtime 3D visualization - EDHEC sailing cup

November 1995 - April 1996
Technologies: Watcom C++, dos4/gw Assembly x86

With a group of enthusiast computer and electronic students at INSA de Lyon, we built a project to track GPS position of boats in a sailing cup and display them in 3D real-time. I was the lead developer of the 3D renderer that was using the popular BSP rendering and texture mapping technique at this time.

Demomaking - Amiga

1989 - 1992 (3 years)
Technologies: GFA Basic, Assembler 68000
Platform: Amiga

I spent my spare time learning democoding and developed several dozens of effects (3D, sprites, bspline rendering, plasma/copper bar, character animation...) I joined the french demoscene group IRIS and released 1 intro and 2 demos (SpaceDepths and the Olympia Demo). As I was living in the country side of France, It was really difficult at this time to get access to relevant technical documentations about how to use the hardware, so I had often to disassemble existing demos to learn from the best coder's techniques. It is also a period where I have written most assembly code in my life. I composed also many musics on this platform.

Awards

  • I have been awarded as a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional for C#/.NET/Visual Studio (2014 - Present, for 10 years)

Articles

In the recent years, I have published many technical posts on my blog, most recently:

Diplomas

  • Social/Specialized Educator, IRTS Marne La Vallee (2006 - 2009, 3 years)
    After my world tour, I took a break of my computer activities and enrolled into a school to learn social education and got a diploma of specialized educator. After this diploma, I worked part-time for one year in a small structure helping kids in a neighborhood in Paris, but my passion in software development got back and I had to stop working there as I was not enough focused on this difficult job.
  • Software Engineer, INSA Lyon (1992 - 1997, 5 years)
  • Baccalaureat Mathematics and Physics, with honors, Lycee Francois-Arago, Perpignan (1992)

Interests

  • Hiking, many during my world tour, at least one hike every month since then.
  • Guitar classic/folk (learned for few years during my 5 years in Software Engineering)
  • Music composition on computers with musictracker: composed many musics on Amiga back in the 1990's and more recently several unfinished musics around 2003 with Renoise.
  • Philosophy, read many authors after my world tour. One of my favorite philosopher is Henry Bergson
  • Swimming, with many competitions when I was younger and now more a casual swimmer