Dave Williams
Software Engineering PhD Candidate @ UCL
Hi, I'm Dave and I'm a second-year PhD candidate at University College London (UCL). My research is primarily focused on understanding the software developer experience in an Automated Software Engineering (ASE) landscape. I am working as a member of both the SOLAR and CREST research groups.
You can contact me at david.williams.22@ucl.ac.uk.
Resume Contact Scholar GitHub
Timeline
Working with Dr Serkan Kirbas as part of the DevX Insights team.
Supervised by Prof. Federica Sarro & Dr Sergey Mechtaev.
Managed by Prof. Federica Sarro
Worked on research involving Genetic Improvement (GI), Regression Test Selection (RTS), and Large Language Models (LLMs) for patch explainability.
Dissertation: "B-Assist: Using GitHub Suggested Changes to Integrate APR Fixes into the Code Review Process"
Supervised by Prof. Federica Sarro & Prof. Justyna Petke
*This dissertation was extended and published at ICSE 2024 as User-Centric Deployment of Automated Program Repair at Bloomberg
Dissertation: "Trustworth Post-Purchase Manufacturing Communication Platform using Blockchain"
Supervised by Prof. Liqun Chen & Prof. Ioana Boureanu (Carlson)
Publications
2026
-
Pomona: Continuous Code Quality Improvement via Small,
Agentic Pull Requests at Bloomberg
David Williams, Angelos Evripiotis, Serkan Kirbas, Sergey Magidovich, Harry Morgan, Peter Wainwright, Federica Sarro
IEEE International Symposium on Software Reliability Engineering (ISSRE) 2026 - Industry Track
ArXiv PDF -
How Do Practitioners Build SE Agents? Insights from a Mixed-Methods Study
Yunbo Lyu, David Williams, Jieke Shi, Zhensu Sun, Chao Peng, Zhou Yang, Federica Sarro, David Lo
ArXiv Preprint
ArXiv PDF -
SafeTune: Search-based Harmfulness Minimisation for Large
Language Models
Giordano d'Aloisio, David Williams, Giusy Annunziata, Zhiwei Fei, Antinisca Di Marco, Federica Sarro
Symposium on Search-Based Software Engineering (SSBSE) 2026 - Challenge Track
Springer ArXiv Slides PDF -
BayesInsights: Modelling Software Delivery and Developer
Experience with Bayesian Networks at Bloomberg
Serkan Kirbas, Federica Sarro,David Williams
ACM International Conference on the Foundations of Software Engineering (FSE) 2026 - Industry Track
ACM ArXiv Slides PDF -
Unveiling Practical Shortcomings of Patch Overfitting Detection
Techniques
David Williams, Ioakim Avraam, Aldeida Aleti, Matias Martinez, Justyna Petke, Federica Sarro
ArXiv Preprint
ArXiv PDF -
Empirical and Sustainability Aspects of Software Engineering
Research in the Era of Large Language Models: A Reflection
David Williams, Max Hort, Maria Kechagia, Aldeida Aleti, Justyna Petke, Federica Sarro
International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE) 2026 - New Ideas and Emerging Results (NIER) Track
ACM ArXiv Slides PDF -
Comparing AI Coding Agents: A Task-Stratified Analysis of Pull
Request Acceptance
Giovanni Pinna, Jingzhi Gong, David Williams, Federica Sarro
International Mining Software Repositories Conference (MSR) 2026 - Mining Challenge Track
ACM ArXiv PDF
2025
-
GA4GC: Greener Agent for Greener Code via Multi-Objective
Configuration Optimization
Jingzhi Gong, Yixin Bian, Luis de la Cal, Giovanni Pinna, Anisha Uteem, David Williams, Mar Zamorano, Karine Even-Mendoza, W. B. Langdon, Hector D. Menendez, Federica Sarro
Symposium on Search-Based Software Engineering (SSBSE) 2025 - Challenge Track
Springer ArXiv PDF -
HotCat: Green and Effective Feature Selection for HotFix Bug
Taxonomy
Luis de la Cal, Yazhuo Cao, Ayse Irmak Ercevik, Giovanni Pinna, Lukas Twist, David Williams, Karine Even-Mendoza, W. B. Langdon, Hector D. Menendez, Federica Sarro
Symposium on Search-Based Software Engineering (SSBSE) 2025 - Challenge Track
Springer PDF
2024
-
User-Centric Deployment of Automated Program Repair at
Bloomberg
David Williams, James Callan, Serkan Kirbas, Sergey Mechtaev, Justyna Petke, Thomas Prideaux-Ghee, Federica Sarro
International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE) 2024 - Software Engineering in Practice (SEIP) Track
ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Paper Award
ACM ArXiv Talk Award Slides PDF -
Speeding up Genetic Improvement with Regression Test
Selection
Giovanni Guizzo, David Williams, Mark Harman, Justyna Petke, Federica Sarro
ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodologies (TOSEM)
ACM PDF
Service
Conferences, Journals & Workshops
- SSBSE 2026: SSBSE Challenge - PC Member
- Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology (TOSEM) - Reviewer
- COW69: MSR Mining Challenge Collaborative Jam Session - Principal Organiser
- MSR 2026 - Junior PC Member
- COW67: AI-powered Software Engineering - Organiser
- ISSTA/ECOOP 2024 - Student Volunteering
Academia
Mentoring
- One Bachelor's Dissertation (Research-Based)
- Two Master's Dissertations @ Bloomberg
- Summer Intern @ SOLAR Group
News
- 13/08/2026 - Pomona: Continuous Code Quality Improvement via Small, Agentic Pull Requests at Bloomberg has been accepted for publication in ISSRE-Industry 2026!
- 08/07/2026 - I gave a talk presenting "BayesInsights: Modelling Software Delivery and Developer Experience with Bayesian Networks at Bloomberg" (slides) at FSE 2026 in Montreal, Canada.
- 06/07/2026 - I gave a talk presenting "SafeTune: Search-based Harmfulness Minimisation for Large Language Models" (slides) at SSBSE (Co-located with FSE) 2026 in Montreal, Canada.
- 30/04/2026 - SafeTune: Search-based Harmfulness Minimisation for Large Language Modelshas been accepted for publication in SSBSE-Challenge Track 2026!
- 17/04/2026 - I gave a talk presenting "Empirical and Sustainability Aspects of Software Engineering Research in the Era of Large Language Models: A Reflection" (slides) at ICSE 2026 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
- 21/03/2026 - BayesInsights: Modelling Software Delivery and Developer Experience with Bayesian Networks at Bloomberg has been accepted for publication in FSE-Industry 2026!
- 20/01/2026 - Comparing AI Coding Agents: A Task-Stratified Analysis of Pull Request Acceptance has been accepted for publication at the MSR 2026 Mining Challenge Track.
- 01/12/2025-02/12/2025 - I had the pleasure of hosting the COW69: MSR Mining Challenge Collaborative Jam Session!
- 01/12/2025 - Empirical and Sustainability Aspects of Software Engineering Research in the Era of Large Language Models: A Reflection has been accepted for publication in ICSE-NIER 2026!
- 26/11/2025 - I gave my first seminar talk: "How-To: SE Research with LLMs" (slides).
- 02/10/2025 - Two papers I co-authored have been accepted for publication at the SSBSE 2025 Challenge Track.
- 25/09/2025 - I had the pleasure of attending the Future Advanced Testing Technology Workshop (FATTW 2025) in Paris, France.
- 03/10/2024 - I started working as a visiting researcher at Bloomberg in London, UK.
- 20/09/2024 - I completed my first conference as a student volunteer at ISSTA/ECOOP 2024 in Vienna, Austria.
- 19/04/2024 - User-Centric Deployment of Automated Program Repair at Bloomberg received the ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Paper Award.
- 17/04/2024 - I gave my first talk presenting "User-Centric Deployment of Automated Program Repair at Bloomberg" (slides) at ICSE 2024 in Lisbon, Portugal.
- 14/03/2024 - Speeding up Genetic Improvement with Regression Test Selection has been accepted for publication in ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology (TOSEM).
- 20/12/2023 - User-Centric Deployment of Automated Program Repair at Bloomberg has been accepted for publication in ICSE-SEIP 2024
Memories
2026
April: Presenting Empirical and Sustainability Aspects of Software Engineering Research in the Era of Large Language Models: A Reflection at for the NIER track at ICSE 2026 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
2025
December: Introducing the 69th Crest Open Workshop (COW): MSR Mining Challenge Collaborative Jam Session at UCL.
September: Adding the finishing touches to Empirical and Sustainability Aspects of Software Engineering Research in the Era of Large Language Models: A Reflection on the journey back to London from FATTW 2025 in Paris, France.
September: Group visit to the Eiffel Tower after the FATTW 2025 in Paris, France.
September: Group photo of the 68th Crest Open Workshop (COW68) at KCL.
2024
April: Presenting User-Centric Deployment of Automated Program Repair at Bloomberg for the SEIP track at ICSE 2024 in Lisbon, Portugal.
April: Group photo of my collaborators attending ICSE 2024 in Lisbon, Portugal.
March: Group photo of the 66th Crest Open Workshop (COW66) at KCL.