Mert Bora Alper

Software engineer more commonly known as "Bora M. Alper" and @boramalper on the Internet, based in Ireland.

[email protected] | linkedin.com/in/boramalper

Experience

Stripe

Senior Software Engineer Mar 2025 – Current

Software Engineer Dec 2021 – Mar 2025

The University of Edinburgh

Software Engineer May 2021 – Aug 2021

Tutor & Demonstrator Sep 2019 – Dec 2020

Software Engineer Intern Jun 2020 – Aug 2020

Education

The University of Edinburgh

BEng (Hons) Computer Science Sep 2017 – May 2021

United World Colleges Dilijan

International Baccalaureate Aug 2015 – May 2017

İstanbul Cağaloğlu Anadolu Lisesi

Anatolian High School Sep 2011 – Jun 2015

Publications

Shattering the Ephemeral Storage Cost Barrier for Data-Intensive Serverless Workflows (2025)

Contributed to a project for faster and cheper data transfers directly between serverless functions.

https://doi.org/10.1145/3721465.3721866

Expedited Data Transfers for Serverless Clouds (2023)

Pre-print of the aforementioned project for faster and cheper data transfers directly between serverless functions.

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2309.14821

How many values are errors in Go? (2019)

Analysed the number of errors returned as values from functions in Go, to explore the inefficiencies of Go's error handling mechanisms. Cited by Herb Sutter, a prominent C++ expert working at Microsoft, in Zero-overhead deterministic exceptions: Throwing values.

Published on the blog.

A New Checksum Formula for Error Detection in Decimal Codes (2017)

Developed a new algorithm for generating checksums of decimal codes, that can detect 91.05% of all transmission errors, outperforming industry-standard Luhn Algorithm, and performing on-par with other modern algorithms such as Damm and Verhoeff. Written as an extended essay during my International Baccalaureate programme.

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.2541760

Awards

Functional Programming Competition Second Prize (2019)

Awarded by Prof Don Sannella to piet∞—interactive, infinitely-recursive, procedurally-generated Piet-esque compositions.

Scholarships

Scholæ Mundi Scholarship 2017–2021

Receiving a grant from Scholæ Mundi Foundation on the basis of my academic achievements for my studies in The University of Edinburgh.

United World Colleges Scholarship 2015–2017

Received a grant from United World Colleges on the basis of my success in high-school for my studies in UWC Dilian.

Languages