Israel Ogbole
4 mins read
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🎉 It gives us great excitement to welcome Tim to zystem (creator of zymtrace).
Tim is a software engineer based near Hamburg, Germany, with over 30 years of experience. He studied mathematics and fluid physics (oceanography) and has spent many years developing large-scale media processing platforms, including telephony, SMS, fax, and voice recognition systems.
In 2020, Tim began work on prodfiler, an eBPF-based continuous CPU profiling platform at Optimyze, Inc., which later evolved into the Universal Profiling following Optimyze’s merger with Elastic in 2021.
Tim is currently an OpenTelemetry(OTel) approver. He was part of the team that pioneered, open-sourced, and contributed the OTel eBPF profiler to the OTel project.
Find him on LinkedIn or on Github
More about Tim
How did you get into software engineering?
The early arcade games Space Invaders and Pac-Man quickly caught my attention; they ate most of my pocket money. But these games, and all the ones that followed, also sparked my interest in computers.
When my school started its first computer course in the early 1980s, it didn’t take long for me to learn BASIC on the shiny new Commodore 4032/8032 machines. Soon after, my parents supported me with a C64 — time to play games again, but also time to learn 8-bit assembly.
The next station was an Amiga 500, where I learned C and 68k assembly. I recently discovered that one of my projects from that era is still alive: the 68k disassembler IRA. As a member of a “demo group,” I started focusing on “making things faster,” including optimizing assembly code—likely where my interest in software optimization stems from.
Around 2014, I began contributing to open-source projects and became (co-)maintainer of GNU Wget, GnuTLS, and GNU libidn. Two of my own projects, Wget2 and libpsl, are now packaged in almost every Linux distribution.
Two of my own projects, Wget2 and libpsl, are now packaged in almost every Linux distribution.
Why zystem?
My motivation to work on profiling tools stems from three sources: the positive environmental impact (climate change is real), the cost savings that come from making systems faster and more energy efficient, and the improved user experience (after all, who likes waiting for computers?). On top of that, I enjoy the challenge of making complex topics like software optimization accessible to a broader audience.
It was a great pleasure to work with Joel and Israel on profiling in the past, at Optimyze and Elastic. Joining them again at zystem.io to take on the challenging task of building zymtrace — a frictionless continuous profiling solution that provides deep, actionable insights into CPU- and GPU-bound workloads, including inference workloads, feels like a dream come true.
I am excited to work with the impressively talented team at zystem.io, operating at the bleeding edge of technology, exploring innovative new areas of profiling, and bringing our insights directly to users.
If not in tech, what would you be doing?
In an alternative life, I’d love to work as a scientific researcher to explore the unknowns of high-energy physics, astronomy, or biology. A side job would be consulting for SciFi movies and series to avoid all these mind-boggling logic errors that keep me from continuing watching 😉.
What drives your creativity?
Outdoor activities like hiking, cycling, and gardening help me recharge and relax. I also enjoy cooking with my wife, meeting friends, and reading science fiction books or scientific magazines.
What wisdom would you share with aspiring software engineers?
If you are in doubt, take a moment to lean back and reflect on the fact that you are unique, and that your work is both outstanding and valuable.
