WHOAMI

Login: alex                               Name: Alexandre McLean
Directory: /home/alex                     Shell: /bin/zsh
On since: Nov 1998                        Idle: 0 days (actively tracing anomalies)
Mail: No new mail.                        Forwarding: None
Office: Québec Retro Lab                  Phone: N/A (use Discord or email)

Former internet handles (2000s era):
  • arsenic
  • Artemis`Entreri

Plan: Building AI-assisted debuggers for distributed systems.
			

Biography

I learned x86 assembly before I ever touched a "real" programming language, all because I wanted to cheat at 2D games. That obsession pulled me into computer science.

While finishing high school, I spent my nights reverse engineering video games, stepping through assembly and tracing memory while others just played.

I never finished Diablo II. Instead, I spent most of my time figuring out how the game worked under the hood. That curiosity about internals grew into a lifelong fascination with how large systems hold together.

Over time, my focus shifted from breaking systems to designing ones that wouldn't.

In 2003, I landed my first gig as a programmer/sysadmin while still in college. I got to learn how to translate business needs into working software, and how to keep it running.

After earning my Bachelor's degree in 2005, I moved into full-time engineering roles. Early on, I focused on hosting web applications at scale, embracing Linux and open source infrastructure, and building backend systems long before "the cloud" was mainstream.

From 2007 to 2009, while working full-time, I went back to university at night to study swarm intelligence and machine learning. I finished the coursework and began a thesis before industry pulled me back in.

I spent years at Ubisoft designing infrastructure that delivered games to millions of players without exploding. Mostly.

Today, I architect distributed systems and build AI-assisted debugging tools. I have a soft spot for open source and I dream of a more open internet with fewer walled gardens.

Outside the terminal, I'm a dad of two. The only system that never respects my breakpoints.