PeopleofSuperintelligence

Builder

Romain François

Also known as Romain Francois, romainfrancois

Romain François is an R developer who co-authored Rcpp, wrote key pieces of dplyr in Rcpp, and is an author of the arrow package. Using R since 2002, they set up the R Graph Gallery in 2005, started work on Rcpp in 2010, and began dplyr with Hadley Wickham in 2013. They presented Rcpp11 at useR! 2014, worked on dplyr as an RStudio contractor and later employee, and co-authored the tidyverse paper in 2019. Their role at Posit ended in June 2023, and in 2025 they published valentine, an R package that uses large language models to write poems about R packages. They work with tada⬢science and offer help with R projects.

Now at
tada⬢science

Timeline

  1. 2002–2009

    R Graph Gallery and rJava

    Using R since 2002, they set up the R Graph Gallery in 2005. In 2009, they work on rJava.

  2. 2010–2015

    Rcpp and Rcpp11

    They work on Rcpp from 2010 and are one of the authors of the package, which Dirk Eddelbuettel maintains. At useR! 2014, they present Rcpp11, a reimplementation of Rcpp built around C++11 features. By 2015, around 66% of CRAN packages depend on Rcpp in some way.

  3. 2013–2014

    Building dplyr with Hadley Wickham

    They start on dplyr in 2013 in collaboration with Hadley Wickham. When dplyr launches in January 2014, its key pieces are written in Rcpp by François for fast performance. Their work comes first as an RStudio contractor and later as an employee, and their C++ expertise makes dplyr much faster than plyr.

  4. November 2019

    Co-authoring the tidyverse paper

    They co-author "Welcome to the Tidyverse" with Hadley Wickham, Mara Averick, Jennifer Bryan and others, published in the Journal of Open Source Software in November 2019.

  5. June 2023

    Leaving Posit

    Their role with Posit ends in June 2023. They stay among the valued members of the broader "team tidyverse", and former employers also include ThinkR and Mango Solutions.

  6. 2024–2025

    The tada and valentine packages

    They publish the tada package on CRAN in February 2024, a suite of tools for tada science that includes a package roulette for learning about new packages. In February 2025, they publish valentine, which uses large language models to create poems about R packages.

  7. As of October 2026

    Working with tada⬢science

    They work with tada⬢science and offer help with R projects. The 2026 versions of the arrow and cpp11 packages also credit them as an author.

Career

  1. Nowtada⬢science
  2. Until 2023Posit Software, PBC
  3. 2013–2014RStudioContractor, Employee

From the biography.

  1. Google had the most people shaping AI every year from 2014 to 2025Our estimates of which organizations employed the most people shaping AI each year from 1955 to 2025, tracing the shift from university labs to companies.
  2. The United States employs an estimated 48% of people shaping AIWe estimate where the people shaping AI work today, how universities, companies and research institutes split across countries, and how country shares have changed since the 1960s.
  3. 43% of living people shaping AI work outside their country of birthWe estimate that 43% of living people shaping AI work outside their country of birth (520 of 1,198 people with known birth and employment countries).
  4. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionWe estimate where the people shaping AI studied and where their careers led. Massachusetts Institute of Technology leads with 467 former students, including 291 recorded doctorates.

Colleagues

People named in this biography, and people with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

Photo: We have no published photo of Romain François yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. useR 2015: Romain Francois: My R adventures | R-bloggers r-bloggers.com. Checked 22 October 2026.
  2. CRAN: Package Rcpp cran.r-project.org. Checked 22 October 2026.
  3. Interview with Romain Francois at useR! 2014 | R-bloggers r-bloggers.com. Checked 22 October 2026.
  4. Introducing dplyr :: Posit Open Source opensource.posit.co. Checked 22 October 2026.
  5. A personal history of the tidyverse hadley.github.io. Checked 22 October 2026.
  6. Journal of Open Source Software: Welcome to the Tidyverse joss.theoj.org. Checked 22 October 2026.
  7. Romain François: "🌅 as my role with Posit sunsets, I…" - Mastodon.social mastodon.social. Checked 22 October 2026.
  8. romainfrancois (Romain François) · GitHub github.com. Checked 22 October 2026.
  9. CRAN: Package tada cran.r-project.org. Checked 22 October 2026.
  10. CRAN: Package valentine cran.r-project.org. Checked 22 October 2026.
  11. Authors and Citation • Arrow R Package arrow.apache.org. Checked 22 October 2026.
  12. Authors and Citation • cpp11 cpp11.r-lib.org. Checked 22 October 2026.