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Isaac Clayton

isaac.sh · Cambridge, Massachusetts

A friend of free software, pushing bits around as an undergrad at MIT. Interested in compilers, display hacks, and AI (as one must be in 2024 2025 2026).

A trail weaving through the mountains on a cold spring day

About me

I started programming in 2013 (scratch.mit.edu ♡). In 2015, I learned Python when my uncle told me it was easier to write neural networks if you didn’t … uh … hardcode the matrix multiplication routines.

In 2017, I became obsessed with shaders and GPUs (thank you, Iñigo Quilez). In 2019, I learned Rust to develop a compiler for Passerine. I keep a blog.

In 2021, I was a software engineering intern at tonari.no, where I prototyped real-time depth estimation on the GPU. In 2022, I interned at zed.dev, where I developed a webassembly extension runtime for e.g. adding new languages to the editor.

I graduated highschool in 2022. I deferred my enrollment and proceeded to live in Brazil for two years. I didn’t use the Internet and learned a lot. (After two years offline, I realized that the Internet is overrated.)

In 2024, when I got back from Brazil, I started at MIT. I joined the men’s lightweight crew. After my first year, in 2025, I (once again) worked at a startup, and a wrote a lot of Rust.

During my second year of school, I helped run Cohort 5 of prod.so. In 2026, I worked at flappingairplanes.com on megakernels and data-efficient RL.

I am now in my third and final year of school. I plan to graduate a year early, pack my wagon, and migrate west. Wish me luck!

I love making art and taking photos! I have played basketball/soccer on 4 of 7 continents to date. I enjoy hiking and skiing with my family. Também falo português, meu rei. Y español.

About this website

I’ve been running this personal website since around 2020. I point the domain slightknack.dev at it, but isaac.sh redirects here too.

This website is static and compiled with Zola. It uses a custom theme that I wrote from scratch and have been incrementally tuning over the years. I currently host this website on GitHub pages; you can peruse its source code here.

The fonts used on this website are:

  1. Ibarra Real Nova for body text.
  2. Texturina for headings.
  3. IBM Plex Mono for code.
  4. Dear Ariella for labels.

I love typography, as my uncle (the one who hooked me on Python) happens to be a type designer.

Contact

Let’s chat! I will respond to all emails sent to:

I also have accounts on:

Padded so you can keep scrolling. Jump back up to the top of this page? All prose on this website is written by me, Isaac. I feel very strongly about preserving my voice, and will not use AI to publish prose under my name.