Alex Tsvetanov
Systems engineer · Researcher · EducatorSofia, Bulgaria

Master yourself.Master the system.

I’m Alex, a systems engineer, researcher and educator. I’ve been writing C++ since 2012 and building production software since 2019—from rendering and distributed services to disaster recovery.

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01 / Projects & open sourceIdeas, tested in code

Beneath the
abstraction.

C++ / NETWORKING · 2017–PRESENT

Coroute / WebFrame++

A cross-platform web framework with a coroutine-based I/O scheduler, lock-free queues and a unified asynchronous API over IOCP, io_uring and kqueue. I’ve worked on scheduling and caching to reduce latency jitter, HTTP pipelining and asynchronous file streaming.

Benchmarks & project background

My earlier Windows and Linux benchmarks measured 750,000–1.2 million requests per second with wrk and ab. Scheduler and queue changes improved throughput by about 13% in that work. These are historical, workload-dependent results; see the project for benchmark context. The project is part of a patent application.

  • Coroutines
  • Cross-platform I/O
  • HTTP & WebSocket
Explore the source
C++ / COMPILE-TIME RESEARCH

Compile-time
Protobuf

Exploring schema parsing, static reflection, and serialization in C++. Moving work into the compiler opens a different way to connect a protocol definition to the types that use it.

  • Static reflection
  • Protocol Buffers
  • Type safety
Explore the research
C++23 / BACHELOR’S THESIS · 2026

Compile-time ORM

My bachelor’s thesis: an ORM that represents queries in the C++ type system and catches structural errors at compile time. Typed fields, joins and parameter binding connect C++ entities to SQL, with SQLite and mock database backends.

  • C++23
  • Typed queries
  • SQLite
Explore the thesis project
Library author · Chaos Group

sketchup-cpp-api

A C++ interface for SketchUp’s Ruby API. I moved integration errors into compile-time checks at the V-Ray boundary, removing a class of defects before the software reached customers. Chaos open-sourced the library.

Explore the library
Upstream contributions

ngtcp2 & MariaDB Connector/C

Contributions to the QUIC and database-client ecosystems, alongside work on native language bindings and the boundary between network protocols, libraries and operating systems.

My GitHub profile
Co-founder & web developer · 2018–2022

Headstarter

A high-school entrepreneurship project in Sofia connecting students with businesses offering internships and jobs. I developed and maintained the platform, supported career guidance and networking, and organized the team’s workload.

The team won Teenovator’s national competition and reached the international Top 10 at Best Youth Startup in 2019.

Explore Headstarter
Founder & web developer · 2016–2019

TechEdu++

A learning management system for high-school informatics. I developed courses and short video lessons covering programming languages and computer-science fundamentals, and integrated the platform into teaching at Sofia High School of Mathematics.

Explore TechEdu++

Code is where an idea has to answer to reality.

More on GitHub
02 / ExperienceProduction software, since 2019

The work
so far.

July 2025–Present

Sofia, Bulgaria
Full-time · Hybrid

Senior C++ Engineer

Acronis ↗
  • Led a cross-functional team of four to take Disaster Recovery for Cyber Frame and VHI to general availability: failover, failback and replicas from the console, across 25 global data centers.
  • Built per-tenant usage metering, aggregation and reporting to enable customer invoicing, then fixed faults affecting invoices in four data centers.
  • Delivered file-level restore and incremental backup for multi-terabyte Kubernetes clusters, on an agent I rewrote from C++ to Go.
  • Built an AI-assisted Jenkins build analyser using the Jenkins, Jira, Bitbucket and Git APIs. Separately integrated the Cypilot SDLC kit into the team’s workflow, contributing requirements and alternatives from image-automation work.
July 2023–July 2025

Sofia, Bulgaria
Full-time · Hybrid

C++ Engineer

Chaos Group ↗
  • Re-engineered point-cloud transformations with xsimd, from SSE through AVX-512, making the viewport interactive at five times its previous speed.
  • Authored sketchup-cpp-api to catch V-Ray/SketchUp Ruby integration errors at compile time. Chaos open-sourced the library.
  • Refactored rendering subsystems for thread safety and cache locality, eliminating high-frequency crashes across different hardware and scene scales.
Sep 2022–July 2023

Leuven, Belgium
Full-time · Remote

Software Architect

SCIA ↗
  • Designed the migration of monolithic Visual C++ logic from legacy COM services to a gRPC and Redis architecture.
  • Modernized the global build system with CMake and vcpkg, enabling cross-platform development for structural engineering software.
  • Directed the evaluation and adoption of gRPC to replace aging internal protocols and improve interoperability.
July–Sep 2022

Sofia, Bulgaria
Full-time · Hybrid

C++ Back-end Developer

PokerStars ↗
  • Worked on backend C++ for a distributed platform serving 55,000+ concurrent users, including real-time limits and transactional services.
  • Built a shared rules engine for jurisdiction-specific legal limits and responsible-gaming requirements, so new markets could be added through configuration.
  • Delivered high-availability transactional systems, maintaining database consistency under sustained load.
June 2021–July 2022

Sofia, Bulgaria
Full-time · Hybrid

Full-stack Developer

VMware ↗
  • Reduced Solution Builder SQL query execution from 30 seconds to 1.5 seconds and resolved systemic deadlocks affecting thousands of users.
  • Built Spring Boot and Angular features for enterprise service bundling, role pairing and automated quote generation.
  • Served as the team’s main resource for front-end performance and styling, mentoring colleagues on UI practices and modular Angular components.
May–Sep 2019

Sofia, Bulgaria
Part-time · On-site

C++ Software Developer

Codix ↗
  • Developed lending, factoring and debt-collection modules for nine international Tier-1 banking and financial institutions.
  • Maintained and extended C++ night jobs and background services supporting data integrity during financial close.
  • Implemented more than 100 feature extensions in a shared codebase, balancing client-specific requirements with a common product architecture.
May–June 2017

Sofia, Bulgaria
Teaching · Volunteering

Technical Trainer

Software University ↗
  • Taught Python programming to learners with different backgrounds, including professionals retraining for software careers.
  • Covered syntax, control flow, functions, data structures and object-oriented programming through live coding, practical exercises and homework.
  • Adapted teaching to the group’s experience and assessed progress through final exams.
03 / Research & standardsAsk. Build. Explain.

Go deep.
Pass it on.

Understanding a system is one part of the work. Making that understanding useful to someone else is another.

Alex presenting at OpenFest 2025, with the stage and audience in the foreground
OpenFest 2025 · C++ talks to the Kernel · Watch the recording

Publications

Nov 2025 / TELECOM · Sofia, Bulgaria

Optimizing Asynchronous Event Dispatch in Modern C++ Publish/Subscribe Systems

Alex Tsvetanov

 June 2025 / ICEST · Ohrid, North Macedonia

Modern C++ Publish/Subscribe Pattern: Design, Challenges, and Implementation

Alex Tsvetanov · Assoc. Prof. Ivan Stankov, Ph.D.

 Nov 2024 / TELECOM · Sofia, Bulgaria

Matching Text from Start to Finish Against Multiple Regular Expressions

Alex Tsvetanov · Assoc. Prof. Ivan Stankov, Ph.D.

 Nov 2017 / ICAICTSEE · Sofia, Bulgaria

An Analytical Outlook towards Digital Training Security Transformations

Assoc. Prof. Zlatogor Minchev · Luben Boyanov, Ph.D. · Antoan Georgiev · Alex Tsvetanov
C++ standards

ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 22/WG 21

Member of the C++ standards committee via BDS Technical Committee 57, representing the Technical University of Sofia.

04 / SkillsFrom the language to the machine

What I
work with.

Languages

  • C++11–26
  • C
  • Python
  • Java
  • C#
  • .NET
  • JavaScript
  • TypeScript
  • Go

Systems & architecture

  • Algorithms & data structures
  • Concurrency & synchronization
  • Multithreading
  • Distributed systems
  • SIMD / xsimd
  • Native language bindings
  • IOCP / io_uring / kqueue
  • QUIC / TLS / HTTP / gRPC

Frameworks & ecosystems

  • ASP.NET
  • WPF
  • MAUI
  • Spring / Spring Boot
  • Flask
  • Node.js
  • Angular
  • SQL
  • Redis

Platforms & tools

  • Linux
  • Windows
  • macOS
  • Kubernetes
  • Docker
  • CMake / vcpkg
  • Git / CI/CD
  • Jenkins
  • Jira
  • Bitbucket
  • SonarQube
  • strace / wrk / ab
05 / Education & trainingSofia · Leuven

The
foundations.

Sep 2023–June 2026

Full-time · Bulgaria
Grade: Excellent · 240 ECTS

B.Eng. Computer and Software Engineering

Technical University of Sofia ↗

Thesis: “Design and Development of a Compile-time ORM library in C++”.

Coursework in C, Python, Java, C++ and C#; algorithms and data structures; operating systems and computer architecture; databases and database projects; networking and mobile development; cryptography, expert systems, logic design and high-performance computing; mathematics, physics and materials science.

Sep 2022–June 2023

Full-time · Belgium
Programme discontinued

Engineering Technology studies

KU Leuven ↗

Studied in English, with applied mathematics, physics, graphic techniques, management and engineering projects. Coursework combined group projects with practical laboratory work.

Sep 2021–June 2022

Full-time · Bulgaria
Transferred abroad

Industrial Engineering studies

Technical University of Sofia ↗

Programme taught in English, covering engineering mathematics, physics, mechanics, materials, electrical engineering and manufacturing processes.

Sep 2013–June 2021

Full-time · Bulgaria
Grade: Excellent

Mathematics & Informatics

Sofia High School of Mathematics ↗

Secondary education focused on advanced mathematics, algorithmic and competitive programming, and applied computer science.

Courses & research schools

Additional training alongside school and university.

June 2016–Sep 2019

Summer Research School

Bulgarian Academy of Sciences · Blagoevgrad

Cybersecurity, AI and systems modelling projects with academic mentors.

Aug–Sep 2018

SAP Geeky Camp 5.0

SAP Bulgaria · Sofia

Algorithms, data structures and practical software problems solved in teams.

Sep 2017–June 2018

Java Web Development

Telerik School Academy · Sofia

Java and Spring applications, MVC, dependency injection and database connectivity.

Sep 2016–June 2017

C# .NET

Telerik Software Academy by Progress · Sofia

ASP.NET, server-side logic, MVC architecture and RESTful services.

Sep 2016–June 2017

Web Development

Telerik Software Academy by Progress · Sofia

Node.js, HTML, CSS and JavaScript; full-stack development and client–server interactions.

Oct 2014–June 2017

Algorithms & Data Structures

Telerik Algo Academy · Sofia

Recursion, dynamic programming, graphs, greedy algorithms and competition problem solving.

Sep 2014–June 2018

C++ & Algorithms

Telerik Kids Academy · Sofia

C++ fundamentals, programming logic and algorithmic problem solving.

06 / Teaching & communityLearning, shared

Beyond
my own work.

Speaker · 2024 & 2025

OpenFest

Talks on sketchup-cpp-api, WebFrame++, and C++ coroutines over unified kernel I/O queues. The five-minute talk in Sofia at OpenFest 2025 covers submission and completion, a coroutine-friendly API, and a thread-pool executor.

Watch all three talks
Author & co-organizer · Apr 2018–Apr 2020

Open Doors Day

Organized three annual editions at Sofia High School of Mathematics, with 19 alumni sharing their career journeys. I coordinated speakers, schedules and logistics, and set up the server infrastructure for livestreaming and online attendance.

Watch the alumni talks
Student mentor · Sep 2017–June 2018

CoderDojo @ Telerik Academy

Volunteered in Sofia to help young learners understand programming, build small personal projects and explore ideas through hands-on coding sessions.

Technical trainer · May–June 2017

Python at Software University

Taught a mixed-experience group through live coding, exercises and assessment, including working professionals starting a new career in software.

View the course
Web developer · Sep 2016–June 2017

Testrain

Developed the web interface, visualization and interaction layer for an academic experimental platform based on Silvan Tomkins’ Affect and Script Theory. The platform supported research into simulating emotional responses.

Read the related paper
Competitor · Dec 2012–June 2021

Sofia city programming team

Competed in national and international algorithmic programming contests, solving problems under time pressure with algorithms and data structures. My first olympiad was in winter 2012; my first gold medal followed in September 2013.

Competition results
07 / Awards & achievementsEngineering · Entrepreneurship · Algorithms

Milestones
along the way.

  1. Oct 2025

    1st among university teams

    Big SCHWARZ Interlude cybersecurity hackathon ↗ · Sofia, Bulgaria

  2. Oct 2019

    President’s “John Atanasoff” awards

    Runner-up · Sofia, Bulgaria

  3. Sep 2019

    Top 10 · Best Youth Startup 2019

    Headstarter · Youth Entrepreneurship Accelerator Ustvarjalnik · Ljubljana, Slovenia

  4. May 2019

    1st · Teenovator national competition

    Headstarter ↗ · Sofia, Bulgaria

  5. Mar 2019

    Gold · Sofia Open

    Sofia Open Algorithmic Programming Competition ↗ · Sofia, Bulgaria

  6. 2017

    Bronze · International “John Atanasoff”

    International algorithmic programming competition ↗ · Shumen, Bulgaria

  7. 2017–2018

    Bronze & U16 silver · Softuniada

    Algorithmic programming competition ↗ · Sofia, Bulgaria

08 / The person behind the workAlex Tsvetanov / Алекс Цветанов
Alex Tsvetanov wearing a leather jacket and gold tie
Sofia, BulgariaAlways a student.

Same rigor.
In code.
In life.

I’ve been writing C++ since December 2012. I’m still asking what happens underneath.

That question has taken me through competitive programming, systems engineering, research, and teaching. I’m drawn to the places where abstractions meet the real machine: concurrency, networking, memory, and performance.

Outside software, I’m interested in neuroscience and brain health, and in the habits that support learning and focus. I train at the gym, play football and table tennis, and listen to rock and metal.

I’ve also been involved in League of Legends eSports since 2021 as a coach, analyst and team manager, and more recently as a color commentator. Teaching, teamwork and understanding performance matter there too.

Languages: Bulgarian (native) and English (C1, TOEFL score: 95).

Download CV LinkedIn
09 / References

People I’ve worked with.

While in high school, Alex's interests focused on AI and Society 5.0. His innovative thinking led us to include him in a specialized young researchers' team for our studies on "Society 5.0 towards 2030". His AI results were further extended for a virtual teacher, providing a visionary outlook for the future of smart education. Alex is a fast-progressing and highly innovative researcher.
Assoc. Prof. Zlatogor Minchev JTSAC Director · IICT-BAS
Alex consistently demonstrates outstanding technical skills and a fearless approach to complex challenges. During our time together, he was instrumental in implementing key features and driving significant infrastructure improvements, directly contributing to the success and stability of our projects.
Noel Warren Senior Software Developer · Chaos
As part of the Architecture team, whose main responsibility was to prototype and introduce innovations, Alex Tsvetanov excelled as a fast learner. No matter which technology we picked (gRPC, Redis, vcpkg), he was always able to quickly learn it and directly build a fully functional prototype. And that was never easy, as he often needed to combine code that was tens of years old with recent technology that was not even suitable for our target platform.
Jan Stříteský Lead Software Architect · SCIA
Alex is not only an excellent programmer, but a sociable and motivated colleague with whom it is pleasant to communicate. He is extremely organized and can be relied upon to learn quickly and clearly, as well as to perform complex tasks independently. I am impressed with his attitude towards the work and the quality results he has achieved.
Irina Drencheva Software Dev Manager · Codix
Alex and I met during the "Softuniada" coding contest where he demonstrated his technical skills in software development, high energy and keen attitude. Later, I hired him to teach a Python course to my students. I believe that Alex is a dedicated and strong developer with deep technical expertise and a serious attitude. He would be an asset to any tech team.
Svetlin Nakov Co-Founder & Innovation and Inspiration Manager at SoftUni
10 / Start a conversationGood questions welcome

Let’s go
deeper

Working on a difficult systems problem? Planning a technical talk? Or just curious about the work?

Say hello alex_tsvetanov_2002@abv.bg
LinkedIn ↗GitHub ↗Instagram ↗Facebook ↗X ↗

Alex Tsvetanov: engineering & research

I’m Alex Tsvetanov (Алекс Цветанов), a senior C++ engineer, researcher and educator in Sofia, Bulgaria. I work on concurrency, asynchronous I/O, distributed systems and compile-time programming.

What do I build?

Coroute / WebFrame++ explores coroutine-based web serving and cross-platform I/O. Compile-time Protobuf explores schema parsing and serialization in C++. My C++ ORM bachelor’s thesis checks query structure at compile time.

Where can I find the evidence?

See the repositories above for code and project documentation, and my publications and recorded technical talks for research context. I completed a B.Eng. in Computer and Software Engineering at the Technical University of Sofia in 2026.

How can we connect?

Find me on LinkedIn or GitHub, or email me about engineering, research or speaking.

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