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Zac Bowling

Software engineer, housing advocate, and lead administrator of Alameda Peeps and r/alameda.

I am the lead administrator and owner of this website, and I serve as the primary administrator for the Alameda Peeps community and the r/alameda subreddit. While I am the person who runs this technical infrastructure and sets the overall direction for these platforms, I am part of a dedicated team of administrators and moderators who work together to keep our community safe and vibrant.

Community Leadership in Alameda

Since 2017, I have been the primary administrator and owner of Alameda Peeps, Alameda’s digital town square. While the community was originally founded in 2010 by Chrissy Collins, I took over leadership to help it grow and modernize. Today, I lead a team of moderators across both Facebook and Reddit (where I moderate r/alameda) to ensure we have a cohesive and well-moderated space for our island city.

My work with Alameda Peeps focuses on:

  • Rapid Community Mobilization: Organizing annual Turkey Drives for the Alameda Food Bank (raising tens of thousands of dollars each year).
  • Supporting Local Business: Creating “Cash Mob” initiatives to boost merchants and neighborhood favorites.
  • Civic Engagement: Advocating for traffic safety (Vision Zero), transparency, and neighbor-to-neighbor support.

Civic & Housing Advocacy

Beyond digital moderation, I am deeply involved in the future of our city and state:

  • Elected Executive Board Member: Serving in the California Democratic Party and as an ADEM delegate for AD-18.
  • Open Government Commissioner: Serving the City of Alameda to promote transparency and accountability.
  • YIMBY Leader: A co-founder of East Bay YIMBY, advocating for sustainable urban development, zoning reform, and affordable housing. I was a key leader in the campaigns for Alameda’s Measure A (2019) and Measure Z (2020).
  • Legal Advocacy: Successfully sued the State of California’s Department of Housing and Community Development to ensure housing laws are applied fairly, specifically regarding jobs-to-housing ratios.

Professional Experience

I am currently a Staff AI Software Engineer at Meta, where I spearhead the development of AI-powered developer tools at Reality Labs for Horizon OS, Quest VR, and wearables.

My career has spanned some of the most influential companies in tech:

  • Google (2015-2023): Early member of the Fuchsia OS team, working on system libraries, drivers, and toolchains. I notably enabled Apple’s Swift language to run natively on Fuchsia.
  • Modular (2023-2024): Building high-performance machine learning infrastructure.
  • Startup Veteran: Held senior roles at Apportable (acquired by Google), SeatMe (acquired by Yelp), doubleTwist, and Match.com.

Connect with Me

I’m a firm believer in the IndieWeb and open connection. You can find more about my professional work, patents, and latest projects at zacbowling.com.