Suggestions
Haoyi Li
Author of the book Hands-on Scala Programming
Haoyi Li is a Staff Software Engineer and Tech Lead Manager at Databricks, a position he has held since September 2017.1 He is a highly accomplished software engineer with expertise in Scala programming and developer tools.
Professional Experience
At Databricks, Haoyi:
- Manages a distributed team of 6 across 5 countries and 3 time zones
- Led the Devtools prioritization process, improving engineer happiness scores
- Architected Databricks' distributed CI system and elastic "Dev Box" service
- Optimized core developer workflows, speeding them up by 5-10x
- Implemented a config language used throughout Databricks1
Prior to Databricks, Haoyi worked at Dropbox from June 2013 to October 2016 as a Software Engineer, where he:
- Built Python/Javascript static analysis tools
- Improved development workflows
- Led efforts to reduce flaky tests
- Set up and managed Selenium tests1
Education and Early Career
Haoyi holds a Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2010-2013).1 He also completed internships at Dropbox (2012) and Facebook (2011).1
Open Source Contributions
Haoyi is well-known for his significant open-source contributions to the Scala ecosystem. He has authored and maintains numerous popular libraries and tools, including:
His open-source projects collectively have over 20,000,000 monthly downloads.3
Publications
Haoyi is the author of "Hands-on Scala Programming," a book focused on practical Scala programming for beginners.23
Approach to Software Development
Haoyi is known for his focus on simplicity and usability in software design. He emphasizes creating tools and libraries that are intuitive and easy to use, especially for beginners.2 His approach aims to make Scala more accessible and productive for developers of all skill levels.


