# Paul Dix

> Paul Dix is the New York-based cofounder and CTO of InfluxData and the creator of InfluxDB. A developer who entered the software industry in the late 1990s and later earned a computer science degree from Columbia University, he turned a struggling monitoring startup into an open source time series database in 2013. He has since guided InfluxDB through successive architectures in Go and Rust, built a business around its open source community, written a book on service-oriented design, and founded the NYC Machine Learning Meetup.

- **Role:** Cofounder and CTO at InfluxData
- **Organizations:** InfluxData, InfluxDB, NYC Machine Learning Meetup, Addison-Wesley
- **Education:** Computer science degree, Columbia University
- **Known for:** Created InfluxDB, first released publicly as an open source project in 2013., Cofounded InfluxData, originally called Errplane, with Todd Persen., Led the technical reinvention of InfluxDB around Rust, Apache Arrow, DataFusion, FlightSQL and Parquet.

## Career timeline

- **Late 1990s** — Entered the computer industry and began working as a software developer.
- **2009** — Started the NYC Machine Learning Meetup.
- **2010** — Built a real-time market-data system at a New York fintech startup and published Service-Oriented Design with Ruby and Rails with Addison-Wesley.
- **2012** — Cofounded Errplane with Todd Persen as a real-time metrics and monitoring SaaS company.
- **2013** — Joined Y Combinator's Winter 2013 batch, then created and released InfluxDB as an open source time series database.
- **2014** — Raised an $8.1 million Series A for the company then known as Errplane.
- **2016** — Moved from CEO to CTO as Evan Kaplan became InfluxData's chief executive, refocusing on product and technology.
- **2020** — Announced InfluxDB IOx, a new Rust- and Apache Arrow-based core intended to overcome cardinality and architectural limits.
- **2025** — Released InfluxDB 3 Core and Enterprise as generally available products after a four-and-a-half-year rebuild.
- **2026** — Led database work behind InfluxDB 3.11 and publicly explored how agentic coding changes software engineering practice.

## Achievements

- Created InfluxDB, first released publicly as an open source project in 2013.
- Cofounded InfluxData, originally called Errplane, with Todd Persen.
- Led the technical reinvention of InfluxDB around Rust, Apache Arrow, DataFusion, FlightSQL and Parquet.
- Founded the NYC Machine Learning Meetup in 2009; InfluxData's biography says it grew beyond 13,000 members.
- Authored Service-Oriented Design with Ruby and Rails, published by Addison-Wesley in 2010.
- Served as series editor for Addison-Wesley's Data & Analytics book and video series.
- Helped build software for startups and organizations including Microsoft, Google, McAfee, Thomson Reuters and Air Force Space Command.

## Latest updates

- **2026-07** — InfluxDB 3.11 shipped with a new storage system for wide and sparse schemas, faster selective queries, and bulk Parquet import and export; Dix described it as the culmination of roughly a year and a half of work he led with the database team.
- **2026-02** — Appeared on The Changelog to discuss experiments with coding agents, production readiness and a temporary return to hand coding.
- **2025-04** — InfluxDB 3 Core and InfluxDB 3 Enterprise reached general availability after a four-and-a-half-year ground-up rebuild.
- **2025-01** — InfluxDB 3 Core and Enterprise entered public alpha under a permissive MIT/Apache 2 license for Core.

## Links

- Website: https://www.influxdata.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pauldix
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/pauldix
- GitHub: https://github.com/pauldix
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@InfluxData

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/paul-dix
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-09-27