Hi there, welcome! #
I’m a maker, through and through, be it with code, words or music.
💻 I code #
I’m a software engineer by training. I carry a love for technology not for its own sake, but how empowering it is.
Over the course of human history, technology has help us creating the leverage that erected the great wonders of the past. Now more than ever in human history, a single person with a laptop literally posesses the capacity to change the world.
After finishing grad school at UCSD, I worked as a full stack and mobile development engineer at Whitepages, Inc from 2018 to 2019, then at Amazon’s AWS and PXT orgs from 2019 to 2024.
While I did well in corporate, it didn’t feel right. I was sorely disappointed by the corporate ugliness, greedy and incompetency I witnessed. Is this the ‘dream job’ the media has been raving about for years? I took a leap of faith and left Amazon in June 2024 and took a half year sabbitical.
I’m now an engineering partner at the Internet Development Studio Company of Seattle, a highly productive creative studio specializing in design as well as engineering.
🖋️ I write #
My dad has a deep love for literature and is dedicated to share his love. As a result, I grew up very fond of writing. One of my parents’ proudest memories was me publishing 2 poems and 2 short essays on 2 different local newspapers when I was in 5th grade. Unfortunately, that love waned over time by an education system that disproportionately favored natural sciences over liberal arts.
In recent years, first inspired by Ryder Carroll’s Bullet Journal, then by my friends Allen and Weichen, then by wonderful contemporary authors such as James Clear, Morgan Housel and Derek Sivers, I’m reinvigorated to pick up the pen and renewed my love of committing words to paper (both literally and figuratively speaking). I started keeping journals, jolting down ideas and learning the art of writing as a craft.
🎻 I fiddle #
By my mother’s influence, I’ve always loved classical music. She encouraged me to start on the piano when I was younger, now she is taking piano lessons.
After moving to Seattle in April 2018, I walked into David Stone’s violin shop and got a starter violin on the second day I settled down. The very next day, I dropped by unannounced to Beverly Gilyeart’s violin studio asking for violin lessons.
I’m fascinated by the history and craft of violin and bow making. Over the years, I’ve tried many violins and bows, and maintain a small collection of violin bows. I commissioned a violin in 2019 from Denver based violin maker Eduard Miller who delivered the violin just before Covid brought the world to heel. I’ve been playing on the same violin ever since.
Timeline #
- 2025: became a partner at the Internet Development Studio Company of Seattle
- 2024: became a permanent resident of the United States, quit my job at Amazon
- 2023: adopted a cat named Henry
- 2022: switched teams from AWS to PXT, performed a solo violin piece to the public for the first time
- 2021: picked up reading and writing again
- 2020: covid, got into cooking and baking
- 2019: started working at Amazon AWS, first orchestral performance with Amazon Symphony Orchestra
- 2018: first full time job at Whitepages, started learning the violin with Beverly Gilyeart
- 2017: interned at Mitek Systems as a software developer
- 2016: started grad school at UC San Diego
- 2015: interned at Rolls Royce
- 2014: two public piano duo performances
- 2013: summer exchange in Berkeley, CA
- 2011: moved to Singapore for college
- 2005: started playing the piano
- 2001: travelled out of home province of Hubei for the first time to Beijing
- 1992: born in Wuhan, China