Co-Founder & CTO
Stealth Mode
Building something new. Still heads-down in stealth mode — more to come soon.
About Me
I build systems and lead teams that make massive data move fast and run efficiently.
Currently, I'm building something new as a co-founder — still in stealth mode, so the details are <REDACTED>. Before that, I was a Consultant and General Manager at the National Center for AI (SDAIA), directing engineering teams on petabyte-scale data pipelines and data quality, and spent years before that in the database trenches at Couchbase (as Principal Software Engineer) and Apache AsterixDB, designing hyper-efficient storage engines and query optimization primitives. I thrive at the intersection of deep-tech systems engineering, scalable architecture, and high-performance team leadership.
Professional Experience
National Center for AI @ SDAIA
Data Quality & Engineering Leadership
General Manager
Feb
2025 - June 2026
Led and supervised a talented engineering team handling petabyte-scale data projects. Responsible for driving the center's data quality initiatives and optimizing data processing and wrangling pipelines that serve a wide range of analysts and scientists across different domains.
Consultant
Aug 2024 - Feb 2025
Returned to the consumer side to advise on engineering practices and data infrastructure for petabyte-scale data projects, supporting the center's data quality initiatives and processing pipelines.
Couchbase Inc.
Database Storage & Query Engine Optimization
Principal Software Engineer
Mar
2024 - Aug 2024
Worked on optimizations for the query and storage engines of the Big Data analytical platform. Building advanced scanning, pruning, and transactional storage primitives.
Senior Software Engineer
Aug
2022 - Mar 2024
Contributed to analytical query and storage optimizations for document stores, improving scan throughput and data layout.
Software Engineer Intern
Couchbase Inc.
Added native query capabilities for Parquet files from external cloud storage engines (e.g. AWS S3) in Couchbase Analytics. Developed projection and filter pushdown logic to minimize network roundtrips.
Program Manager Committee (PMC)
Apache AsterixDB
Actively contributing to open-source database internals, with focus on LSM storage engines, columnar document representation, page-level compression, and compiler optimizations.
Research Associate / Research Affiliate
KACST & MIT
Worked at the Center for Complex Engineering Systems (CCES) – a joint collaboration between KACST and the Institute for Data, Systems and Society (IDSS) at MIT. Designed big data analytics frameworks, including the open-source AsterixDB-Spark Connector, CityDynamics, and Integrated Transportation Systems.
Associate Software Engineer
Advanced Electronics Company (AEC)
Developed firmware and collection software connecting electric and water smart-meters to data collection networks for R&D projects (ADDAD4, Water Smart Meter).
Education
PhD, Computer Science
University of California, Irvine
Thesis: Towards Analytics-optimized Document Stores
Supervisor: Michael J. Carey
MSc, Computer Science
University of California, Irvine
Thesis: NUMA-aware Multicore Matrix Multiplication
Supervisor: Isaac D. Scherson
BSc, Computer Science
King Saud University
Graduated with a GPA of 4.55/5.0, earning Second Class Honors.
Publications
The Evolution of Storage in Apache AsterixDB (Industry)
PVLDB, to appear, 2026
Columnar Formats for Schemaless LSM-based Document Stores
PVLDB, 15(10), 2085-2097, 2022
An LSM-based Tuple Compaction Framework for Apache AsterixDB
PVLDB, 13(9), 1388-1400, 2020
End-to-End Machine Learning with Apache AsterixDB
In Proceedings of the Second Workshop on Data Management for End-To-End Machine Learning,
2018
Large-scale Complex Analytics on Semi-structured Datasets using AsterixDB and Spark
PVLDB, 9(13), 1585-1588, 2016 (Demo)
Research Projects
Vectorized vs. Code Generation Execution for AI Workloads
Investigating whether vectorized execution or runtime code generation performs better for numerical-heavy workloads, as seen in AI pipelines. Comparing an Oracle Truffle-based code generation approach against a vectorized engine built on Apache Arrow with custom native kernels.
In Progress
Code Generation for Schema-on-Read Databases
Explored runtime query compilation techniques for document stores where value types are unknown until query time. Leveraged Oracle Truffle to compile execution sub-trees in a Java-based document store, showing major speedups over standard vectorized batch processing models.
Columnar Formats for Schemaless LSM Document Stores
Extended the Dremel columnar format to support document stores' flexible, nested data model. Designed and implemented two layouts for organizing and storing schemaless data in LSM-based storage systems, optimizing query scans over nested, sparse document fields.
LSM-based Tuple Compaction Framework
Proposed a new mechanism to leverage Log-Structured Merge (LSM) lifecycle events to automatically infer schema and semantically compact self-describing semi-structured records. Implemented in Apache AsterixDB along with page-level compression, achieving a 9.8x reduction in storage size and query speedups of the same factor.
Awards & Fellowships
2024
Couchbase's President Club Award
Recognized as a high performer and one of the top achievers at Couchbase Inc. for outstanding engineering contributions.
2017 - 2022
Ph.D. Graduate Fellowship
Awarded full graduate scholarship from the King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) for Ph.D. studies at UC Irvine.
2010 - 2013
M.Sc. Graduate Fellowship
Awarded full graduate scholarship from King Abdullah Scholarship Program for M.Sc. studies at UC Irvine.
2004 - 2008
Second Class Honors
Awarded Second Class Honor for outstanding academic performance and high GPA at King Saud University.