Alex Mc Kinney
About Alex Mc Kinney
Alex McKinney is a Founding Engineer at Fern, specializing in developing SDK generators for the Go programming language. He has held various engineering and teaching roles at notable institutions, including the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering and the University of California, Berkeley.
Work at Fern
Alex Mc Kinney serves as a Founding Engineer at Fern, a company that is part of the Y Combinator W23 batch. He has been with the company since 2023 and is based in Brooklyn, New York. In this role, he is primarily responsible for developing the Go SDK generator, which creates idiomatic HTTP clients from OpenAPI specifications. His contributions are integral to the company's engineering efforts.
Previous Experience in Software Engineering
Prior to his current role at Fern, Alex Mc Kinney held several positions in software engineering. He worked at Buf as a Founding Engineer from 2020 to 2022 in Seattle, Washington. Additionally, he was a Senior Software Engineer at Uber in 2019 and at Compass for a brief period in 2019 to 2020. His experience at Uber spanned three years, during which he progressed from Software Engineer to Senior Software Engineer.
Teaching and Academic Roles
Alex Mc Kinney has experience in academia, having served as a Lecturer at the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering for two months in 2024. He also worked as a Lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley for two months in 2016. His teaching experience includes volunteering as a Computer Science Teacher for the TEALS Program in 2017, where he contributed for four months in Emeryville, California. Additionally, he was a Teaching Assistant at UC Berkeley from 2015 to 2016.
Education and Expertise
Alex Mc Kinney earned a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley, completing his studies from 2012 to 2016. His expertise includes developing SDK generators, particularly for the Go programming language. He is recognized as the primary author of Fern's Go SDK generator, showcasing his proficiency in generating HTTP clients from OpenAPI specifications.