Chris Lattner

Timeline

1. 2000–2005

   Building LLVM at Illinois

   He earns a Bachelor of Science in computer science at the University of Portland in 2000 and joins the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in late 2000. Working with Vikram Adve, he designs and begins implementing LLVM, the subject of his 2002 master's thesis, and he completes his PhD with Adve in 2005.

2. 2005–2017

   Clang and Swift at Apple

   Apple hires him in July 2005 to bring LLVM to production quality, and he starts the Clang project. He begins work on the Swift programming language in July 2010, and Apple introduces it at WWDC 2014. Later he manages Apple's Developer Tools department, covering Xcode, Instruments and the compilers, until he leaves in January 2017.

3. 2010–2013

   Two awards for LLVM

   ACM SIGPLAN gives him its inaugural Programming Languages Software Award in 2010 as the author of LLVM. In 2013, he, Vikram Adve and Evan Cheng receive the ACM Software System Award for their work on LLVM.

4. January 2017–June 2017

   Autopilot software at Tesla

   He serves as Tesla's vice president of Autopilot Software from January 2017 to June 2017 and works on the transition of Autopilot hardware.

5. August 2017–January 2020

   TensorFlow and MLIR at Google

   He joins Google Brain in August 2017 and serves as Senior Director and Distinguished Engineer for TensorFlow infrastructure until January 2020. Starting from a whitepaper in April 2018, he builds the MLIR compiler infrastructure with a small team of compiler engineers at Google.

6. January 2020–January 2022

   Platform engineering at SiFive

   In January 2020, he joins the RISC-V processor company SiFive as President of Platform Engineering and leads its engineering and product teams until January 2022. At SiFive, he defines and launches the SiFive Intelligence product line.

7. 2022–2025

   Co-founding Modular

   In January 2022, he and Tim Davis, who met at Google, launch Modular to rebuild machine-learning infrastructure, and he leads the company as CEO. Modular unveils Mojo, a programming language built on Python that aims for the performance of C, in May 2023. In September 2025, the company raises $250 million in Series C funding at a $1.6 billion valuation.

8. Since July 2026

   Executive vice president at Qualcomm

   Qualcomm agrees to acquire Modular in June 2026 and completes the deal in July 2026. Lattner becomes Qualcomm's executive vice president of advanced AI software and platforms, and Mojo, MAX and Modular Cloud continue as products.