Zeev Suraski

Zeev Suraski is an Israeli programmer who co-created PHP 3 and the Zend Engine and co-founded Zend Technologies.

born 1976Co-creating PHP 3Writing the Zend EngineCo-founding Zend Technologies

Born: 18 February 1976, Kiryat Bialik
Occupation: programmer, engineer, businessperson, computer scientist
Education: Technion – Israel Institute of Technology
Founded: Perforce Zend (1999)

Zeev Suraski was born in 1976 in Kiryat Bialik

Zeev Suraski was born on 18 February 1976 in Kiryat Bialik, where he grew up. He went to the local ORT high school there. He later graduated from the Technion in Haifa.

In 1997 Suraski and Andi Gutmans created PHP 3, and he was the lead contributor to PHP from then on. In 1999 the two wrote the Zend Engine, the core of PHP 4, and founded Zend Technologies. The company name joins their first names, Zeev and Andi.

Suraski served as chief technology officer of Zend. Rogue Wave Software bought Zend in 2015, and in October 2018 he announced he would leave after the new owner changed its focus. He is an emeritus member of the Apache Software Foundation and was nominated in 1999 for the FSF Award for the Advancement of Free Software.

He then became chief technology officer of Strattic, a Jerusalem company that builds WordPress hosting technology. Elementor acquired Strattic in 2022. He later worked at Google Israel. He is married to Anya, they have 3 daughters, and they live in Givatayim.