About me
I like hard problems, dumb ideas, and making things work.
On paper, I'm an EECS student at Berkeley and a software engineer at Foundation Industries. In practice, I just like doing anything I can.
The actual origin story
It really did start with tacos.
During COVID, my friends and I were talking about finally going to Taco Bell. Somehow that conversation became Taco Bot: a Discord bot that sent taco pictures, ran trivia, and maintained a completely imaginary taco economy.
It was objectively ridiculous. Then people I didn't know started adding it to their servers, asking for features, and finding new ways to break it. Programming stopped feeling like a skill I was practicing and started feeling like a way to make something other people could enjoy.
I'm still chasing that feeling. The projects are more technical now, but the impulse is the same: notice something interesting, build a version, put it in front of people, and learn from everything I got wrong. I wrote the longer, more embarrassing version of the story in a very late tribute to Taco Bot.
As a developer
What I'm actually like to build with
I follow the interesting part.
I like understanding the whole path from a messy input to the person using the result. That is how I end up moving between CAD files, CNC machines, puzzle screenshots, phone audio, and product interfaces without seeing them as completely different kinds of work.
I have an over-building problem.
A two-minute puzzle became a cloud-hosted search system. A taco joke became a bot used by strangers. That instinct can produce good work, but it can also produce three extra services nobody asked for. I am getting better at making the complexity earn its place.
I care who is on the other side.
The projects I remember most are the ones shaped by friends, teammates, operators, and users. I like direct feedback, honest postmortems, and giving collaborators credit. Shipping is more satisfying when it is useful to someone besides me.
Away from the screen
I do occasionally close the laptop.
The best part of Berkeley has been the people around me: friends who introduce me to oddly compelling puzzles, teammates willing to fly across the world for a hackathon, and the steady stream of new food, ideas, and plans that comes with living here.
I lift, cook, like cars and physical systems, and spend an unreasonable amount of time curating Spotify. I like visible progress, whether that is a cleaner interface, a heavier set, or dinner becoming edible.
I also tend to say yes to ideas that sound slightly too large at first. Sometimes that becomes a side project; sometimes it becomes a good story with friends. Both are worthwhile.
Right now
At work
Building software around quoting, CAD review, CNC scheduling, and shop-floor operations at Foundation Industries.
At Berkeley
Studying EECS, meeting people who know things I do not, and trying to leave room for curiosity outside class.
After hours
Tinkering with side projects, lifting, cooking, finding music, and making plans with friends.
Working on
Choosing what not to build while making the things I do build simpler, clearer, and more useful.