Nihal Kumar profile photo 1 on Tal

Nihal Kumar

GSoC Qubes OS | Zed, Tor, Arch | Rust | Linux

Delhi

1+ year of work experience

Qubes OS
Apr 20265 mosPresent

Remote

Contributing across the core stack of Qubes OS, a (the most) security-focused operating system used by journalists, whistleblowers and high-threat model individuals.
Arch Linux
Oct 202511 mosPresent

• Community MCP Server to the Arch Linux Ecosystem. Total Downloads: 20k+
Arch Linux
Jul 20251 yr 2 mosPresent

Remote

• Authoring, maintaining and reviewing packages for the Arch Linux User Repository.
The Tor Project
Nov 20254 mosFeb 2026

Remote

Contributions toward fundamental infrastructure for privacy and censorship circumvention, spanning Rust systems programming, networking protocols, DevOps, and browser internals. • Implemented SOCKS5 and HTTP CONNECT proxy support in Arti, Tor's next-generation Rust client, directly advancing its viability as a drop-in replacement for the legacy C implementation • Improved error observability in a production Rust networking library by surfacing structured failure timestamps and durations, cutting time-to-debug for connection retry failures • Reduced Docker image size by 80% (447 MB to 89.4 MB) and cut build times by ~15 seconds via multi-stage builds and dependency pruning • Fixed proxy state tracking and added a live client counter badge to the Snowflake browser extension, a censorship circumvention tool actively used in restrictive regions
Zed Industries
Oct 20258 mosMay 2026

Remote

Selected for the Zed Guild, a 12-week cohort program where a small group of contributors are chosen to work on features and ship production code alongside the Zed core team. Independently identified and drove work across the terminal, debugger, git UI, font rendering, and Linux platform layer. • Shipped multiple features including a native Linux global menu bar, an embedded browser tab prototype, and font spacing controls • Fixed bugs across the terminal renderer, debugger, and auto-updater, many of which I self-identified • Triaged and reproduced open issues to unblock maintainers, not just fix assigned tickets • Ramped into a large production Rust codebase with no prior onboarding or guidance
GitHub
@nihalxkumar

Nihal’s AI Stack

antigravity
antigravity
cursor
cursor
opencode
opencode

Education

Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani

Bachelor of Science - BS, Computer Science

Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani

K-12

Hillwoods Academy

Join Nihal and 10k+ other professionals on

Tal Boss

Tal is the app where bosses meet engineers & builders directly, without middlemen

Download Tal Boss

Nihal Kumar on Tal

Headline

GSoC Qubes OS | Zed, Tor, Arch | Rust | Linux

About

Self-starter with a strong sense of accountability. Curious, growth-minded, humble, and willing to admit what I do not know and learn from mistakes. I care deeply about contributing to society, helping others grow, and building things that genuinely improve lives. https://www.nihalxkumar.dev/contact

Location

Delhi

AI stack

antigravity

cursor

opencode

Work experience

Open Source Developer at Qubes OS, Apr 2026 - Present · 5 mos, Remote, Contributing across the core stack of Qubes OS, a (the most) security-focused operating system used by journalists, whistleblowers and high-threat model individuals.

Maintainer - Arch Linux MCP at Arch Linux, Oct 2025 - Present · 11 mos, • Community MCP Server to the Arch Linux Ecosystem. Total Downloads: 20k+

Maintainer - AUR Packages at Arch Linux, Jul 2025 - Present · 1 yr 2 mos, Remote, • Authoring, maintaining and reviewing packages for the Arch Linux User Repository.

Open Source Developer at The Tor Project, Nov 2025 - Feb 2026 · 4 mos, Remote, Contributions toward fundamental infrastructure for privacy and censorship circumvention, spanning Rust systems programming, networking protocols, DevOps, and browser internals. • Implemented SOCKS5 and HTTP CONNECT proxy support in Arti, Tor's next-generation Rust client, directly advancing its viability as a drop-in replacement for the legacy C implementation • Improved error observability in a production Rust networking library by surfacing structured failure timestamps and durations, cutting time-to-debug for connection retry failures • Reduced Docker image size by 80% (447 MB to 89.4 MB) and cut build times by ~15 seconds via multi-stage builds and dependency pruning • Fixed proxy state tracking and added a live client counter badge to the Snowflake browser extension, a censorship circumvention tool actively used in restrictive regions

Open Source Developer at Zed Industries, Oct 2025 - May 2026 · 8 mos, Remote, Selected for the Zed Guild, a 12-week cohort program where a small group of contributors are chosen to work on features and ship production code alongside the Zed core team. Independently identified and drove work across the terminal, debugger, git UI, font rendering, and Linux platform layer. • Shipped multiple features including a native Linux global menu bar, an embedded browser tab prototype, and font spacing controls • Fixed bugs across the terminal renderer, debugger, and auto-updater, many of which I self-identified • Triaged and reproduced open issues to unblock maintainers, not just fix assigned tickets • Ramped into a large production Rust codebase with no prior onboarding or guidance

Education

Bachelor of Science - BS, Computer Science, Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani

K-12, Hillwoods Academy

Public links

github: https://github.com/nihalxkumar