in the people's republic of china, back in 2k and eleven i began my professional career as a marketing representative for a computer security company in beijing. my job was to travel the world attending industry trade shows evangelizing to western audiences about their products.
at these events people would often ask me questions after the presentation about device specifications, i was trained to respond "i'm just a sales guy, i'll have my colleague get back to you". this always made me feel like a dummy and after a while i got tired of it, so i persuaded a friend to teach me programming in exchange for guitar lessons.
two years later i begain an msc programme in computer science at the university of hong kong, supporting myself by working part-time in the computer securty lab, and part-time as an online retailer. after i graduated i accepted a position as a researcher at singapore university of technology and design, working on natural language processing.

this experience lead me to join the fraunhofer-gesellschaft in bonn, federal republic of germany, as a phd candidate in the summer of 2k fifteen, working at the forefront of database design. two years later, after having realized the constraints of academia i accepted a role as a software engineer at a company based in brooklyn.
having spent years (10,000 hours) working on teams of highly skilled engineers building complex software systems gave me the confidence in my ability as a programmer to strike out on my own, designing digital experiences for myself and others.
if you've got an idea about how we might collaborate together i'd be pleased to hear from you. feel free to reach out to me through any of the media featured at the bottom of the page!