About

Table of Contents

Hi, I’m Brenden Matthews. I’m a software engineer, author, artist, and entrepreneur. I’ve worked with startups—three of which went on to pass a $1B valuation—and built my own ventures.

I’m from Canada and have lived and worked in San Francisco and New York. Here I write essays on engineering, entrepreneurship, and creative work, along with the occasional journal entry.

Say hello or ask a question at hifromyourblog@brenden.brndn.io. No marketing, please.

Books #

Beyond this blog, I’ve written two books on Rust:

Code Like a Pro in Rust

Manning, February 2024

The techniques experienced Rust developers rely on.

Idiomatic Rust

Manning, August 2024

Design patterns, tips, and lesser-known Rust features for building stable, maintainable software.

Work #

I’ve worked at and with Airbnb, Mesosphere (D2IQ), and Braze, following earlier roles in Canada and California.

2003–2009

Built oil and gas exploration instrumentation in Canada.

2009–2012

Built custom databases, an RPC system, and Ericsson LTE data parsers for a California mobile telecom optimization company before its acquisition.

2013–2015

Worked on data infrastructure and open source at Airbnb, including Apache Mesos (PMC), Chronos, SmartStack, and Kafka.

2015–2017

Supported sales and services to help scale Mesosphere.

Since 2019

Turned to entrepreneurship and writing—including Rust books—after Braze.

Read my full résumé.

Open Source #

I’ve contributed to many open-source projects. A few of my own:

Conky — a system monitor
ThetaGang — an options trading strategy
dryoc — a pure-Rust cryptography library
cracking-the-coding-interview-rust — Rust solutions to coding problems
genserver — an Elixir-style GenServer in Rust
More on GitHub

Speaking & Media #

I’ve spoken at events like QCon, All Things Open, MesosCon, ContainerCon, and LinuxCon, and been interviewed for articles and podcasts:

SE Radio — on “Idiomatic Rust”
Rustacean Station — on “Idiomatic Rust”
Rustacean Station — on “Code Like a Pro in Rust”

Adventures #

Two cyclists in the desert — Somewhere in Nevada, pretending not to look at the camera.

Off the clock, I like long rides and questionable endurance goals:

Biked unassisted from SF to NYC in 27 days and recorded a daily YouTube vlog.
Raced the Wolfpack Hustle Crash Race before the 2012 LA marathon, crashed, and still ran the marathon in under four hours.
Biked from sea level to the 13,000+ ft summit of Mauna Kea.
Rode from SF to Chico and through the northern Sierra to Mount Shasta, then climbed it.

Photography & Video #

I enjoy photography, especially analogue: street, portraits, and printmaking. Images on this blog are free to use under CC0 1.0 ( see an example).

I also keep a YouTube channel, used to stream on Twitch, and made a brief appearance in a Hulu documentary on WeWork.

This Site #

This site’s source code is on GitHub. Post and word counts by year and month: