Lucas Ly Ba · open to opportunities worldwide
on-site / hybrid / remote
MSc student in Low-Level & Systems Engineering @ EPITA
I build the layers most people never see — compilers, developer tools, and systems software. I write Rust, C and C++ close to the metal.
I'm a Master's student at EPITA on the GISTRE track — low-level & systems engineering. I work on compilers, systems software, and the developer tools that sit close to the machine.
I was selected for Google Summer of Code 2026 with Debian — accepted among 15,245 applicants worldwide (a 7.5% acceptance rate) — to build debian-lsp, a Language Server Protocol implementation for Debian packaging files.
I contribute to several open-source projects — among them the Swift compiler, gccrs (the GCC Rust front-end) at Embecosm, and Debian. Alongside that I maintain EPITA's Tiger Compiler, where I write SSA-based optimization passes. I also build my own systems software — a POSIX shell, a Helix-inspired editor, an OCR pipeline — and I founded Memex, a product I shipped end-to-end.
Debian · Google Summer of Code 2026
Selected to contribute to the Debian organization, accepted among 15,245 applicants worldwide (7.5% acceptance rate). Building debian-lsp, a Language Server Protocol implementation for Debian packaging files — delivering completions, diagnostics, hover, go-to-definition, formatting, code actions, inlay hints and semantic highlighting across key Debian metadata and packaging files. Collaborating with Debian maintainers through design discussions and code reviews.
Mentor: Jelmer Vernooij
EPITA — École d'Ingénieurs en Informatique
Part of a 61-person assistant team teaching C++, Java and JavaScript to third-year students. One of six maintainers of the Tiger Compiler — the largest and longest-running project of the year, built to teach modern C++, compiler construction and software design patterns. On the backend I implemented several SSA-based optimization passes:
Mentors: Mael Cravero, Julie Fiadino
Embecosm
Contributed to gccrs (the GCC Rust front-end), a production-grade open-source compiler written in C++ that brings Rust support to GCC. Resolved multiple issues and pull requests across the compiler pipeline, focusing on lint accuracy, diagnostics quality and the overall compilation feedback experience.
Mentors: Arthur Cohen, Pierre-Emmanuel Patry
EPITA — École d'Ingénieurs en Informatique
Six-month teaching internship preceding my TA role — supporting third-year students on systems and C++ coursework, writing assignments, and answering technical questions throughout the semester.
A Language Server Protocol implementation for Debian packaging files. Completions, diagnostics, hover, go-to-definition, formatting, code actions, inlay hints and semantic highlighting across Debian metadata. My Google Summer of Code 2026 project.
A modal, Helix-inspired text editor written from scratch in Rust — selection-first editing, multiple cursors and a tree-sitter-driven rendering pipeline. A deep dive into terminal UIs, text buffers and editor internals.
Active open-source contributor to the Swift toolchain — currently opening pull requests against the compiler, working through a large production C++ codebase and its review process.
A reproducible flake.nix that builds the full Swift 6.5 toolchain from
source on NixOS — which upstream doesn't support. Reverse-engineered the build to
solve a deep cascade of toolchain problems: DT_RUNPATH vs transitive
rpath, glibc sysroot detection in ClangImporter, a complete bootstrap runtime, and
ncurses shimming. A complete, working NixOS build of Swift from scratch.
A POSIX-compliant Unix shell written in C from the ground up: lexer, parser, AST execution engine, built-ins, job control, redirections, piping and signal handling.
An end-to-end OCR pipeline in C: image preprocessing, a neural network for digit recognition, and a constraint-propagation solver — from a photo of a grid to a solved puzzle.
A keyboard-driven mouse navigator for X11 — a Vimium-style hint mode that traverses the AT-SPI accessibility tree (with OCR fallback) and drives the pointer via x11rb. Built for i3.
A browser extension that turns AI conversations into a searchable knowledge workspace — indexing ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity, auto-tagging content, grouping related threads and syncing across devices. Founded and shipped end-to-end.
malloc in CI design algorithmic challenges for the selection rounds of Prologin, France's national computer-science competition.
2025 — presentI mentor incoming international students at EPITA, guiding campus integration and academic onboarding in English.
2025 — present// Let's build something low-level
I'm open to opportunities in compilers, systems and tooling — internships, collaborations or roles. The fastest way to reach me is email.