About

Hey, I’m Nevin 👋

Systems Engineer with a specialty in Database Systems: OLAP, Metadata Management, Storage, Query Engines & Processing.

Background

I have a Masters in Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon, where I got inspired by databases and knew I wanted to pursue them as a career.

I spent 4 years at Google working on BigQuery internals — the streaming layer, storage APIs, and the machinery that moves petabytes between query engines and cloud storage. I learned what it takes to build systems that work at massive scale: the engineering rigor, the failure modes you’d never predict, and the operational discipline to keep it all running.

What I’m Interested In

• Storage engines — how data is laid out on disk and accessed efficiently
• Query engines — planning, optimization, and execution
• Streaming systems — high-throughput data pipelines that keep consumers fed
• Columnar formats — Parquet, Arrow, Vortex, and the tradeoffs between them
• Distributed systems — coordination, consistency, and the places where theory meets messy reality
• OLTP — interested in branching into transactional systems and exploring that side of the database world

What I’m Working On

Building database and storage engine projects from scratch to explore the design space and sharpen my low-level implementation skills. I believe the best way to understand a system is to build one. Currently job hunting.

What I’m Looking For

I’m looking for my next role — ideally at a smaller company working on hard, unsolved problems in data infrastructure. I want to build things that matter with people who are passionate about the work. If that sounds like your team, I’d love to chat.

Outside of Work

I’m into photography, music, food, and travel. You can find some of that on my Instagram.

Get In Touch

📄 Resume 📫 nevzheng@gmail.com 🔗 LinkedIn 📷 Instagram