Andrew Fogartya software engineer in New York City

Since 2016, I have been working at Microsoft in the Azure Data organization. I am currently a Principal Software Engineering Manager on the Apache Spark Runtime team. We build and ship Microsoft’s private distribution of Apache Spark and related Apache ecosystem services. My recent work has focused on Spark internals, cloud infrastructure, and large-scale distributed systems. Most recently, I led a v-team to implement the Spark support for OneLake security (RLS and CLS) in Microsoft Fabric.

Originally from Montréal, I studied at McGill University between 2012 and 2016. At university, my first major was software engineering and my second was philosophy; I graduated with a Bachelor of Science. I am grateful to have received such a broad education in math, science, and the humanities. The recent emergence of LLM-based AI systems is causing profound changes in the world of high-technology and human-computer interaction. I think that philosophy and critical thinking are extremely valuable tools for navigating these changes. Software engineers must become philosophers of mind.

After graduation, I lived in Seattle for five years, then moved to New York City in 2021. During that time I became intensely interested in photography and had the privilege of taking workshops and courses taught by some of the best photographers. These included Jeff Mermelstein, Matt Stuart, Andre Wagner, Aaron Berger, Sebastian Siadecki, and Jorge Garcia.

I hold US and Canadian passports and live in Manhattan with my wife Yilin and our shiba inu Yuki.

Publications

Open-Source