It is with great sadness that we share the news of the passing of Johannes Doerfert, on September 17, 2026, at the age of 36, after a battle with cancer.

125 points•sdko•6 days ago•7 comments•

7 comments

stmonty5 days ago
Dying of cancer while that young is always a tragedy. I remember looking into some of the polyhedral compilation work in LLVM as I had never heard of it before. His contributions will live on.
zamadatix5 days ago
It's one thing to read a list of accomplishments with a project/organization to see how much someone cared for it but that the family was asking for donations to the LLVM foundation in his honor really sells how much he must have loved LLVM.
kuter5 days ago
I had the pleasure of working with Johannes as part of Google Summer of Code in 2020 and 2021 working on LLVM. He mentored me and many students over the years.

I remember in 2020 he would meet with us at 7AM his time to accommodate every student he was working in different parts of the world (Turkey, Greece, China, Japan iirc), I was the one from Turkey.

I had Coffee with him and his wife few months back. He was so full of life despite everything.

He touched the lives of many people. What a great life lived despite being so short.

JonChesterfield5 days ago
Johannes was a leader in his field. LLVM is on a different path with his passing. We are lucky to have worked with him.
trws4 days ago
He was a great compiler engineer, a great collaborator, and a better friend. I count myself lucky having known him, and getting to spend a few of his last hours with him. Rest in peace my friend.

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