My trade is in software development, and I have spent 20+ years building software systems with broad experience in software engineering, law, finance, sales and product development. I work primarily in scaling startups where my entrepreneur mindset is most impactful and valued.
I have done many commercial and personal projects since I was 6 when I first learned BASIC. I learned “printf” before I learned the word “print”. I wrote my first commercial program at age 9 to store and print invoices. I spent most of my teenage years building fun websites on Geocities and flipping domain names.
After finishing my engineering bachelors degree, I worked as a firmware engineer in broadcasting technology while studying for my masters in applied computing. I launched my startup after 3 years as a solo developer. I built a mobile location-based directory service, a dating site, a traffic monitoring app that shows images of the traffic conditions near you, a sleep cycle app that helps you fall asleep and wakes you softly at the time when it’s least disruptive to your sleep cycle, and an expenses sharing app that became one of the top grossing apps on the App Store back in 2005.
I took a break from computers when I received a cease and desist letter for one of my apps. I decided to pursue a law degree. It was cheaper than the lawyer’s quote, and I was burned out from maintaining multiple apps by myself. I opted to study a distance learning legal qualification, in fact, it was the same programme that Nelson Mandela did during his imprisonment.
After finishing my law degree, I worked corporate for a year as a trainer / pre-sales engineer and sold legal research platform software. I gave about 400 presentations with varying sizes of audience from one (a court judge) to 10,000+ (a large university class in China). The best thing about this role was the feedback from the audience. Because I had automated the feedback collection, I almost always knew how I did. I was able to iterate and improve on my public speaking skills.
I was recruited by a coworker to join a fintech startup, and they had seen my public speaking gigs and wanted me to try sales. I was hired as a salesperson and received training to be licensed to buy and sell stocks on the stock exchange. It was a whole new world and lasted over a year. In hindsight, I liked selling and making connections with clients and investors, but I struggled with feeling like I must evaluate everyone’s purchasing and social powers in the name of efficiency. It wasn’t good for my mental health, so I wasn’t sad when my role was laid off.
I left Hong Kong and went to London. I worked in R&D tax funding advisory for 7 years. I worked in a mix of roles from account management to operational management to crisis management. I was able to use my legal skills to handle HMRC enquiries and my software development skills for building out the software system that manages the workflow. It was helpful to know the tax code well for the company, so I spent two years to study for a taxation technician accreditation while working there. I also got to work with many startups in the UK and saw their finances and technology in depth. I witnessed how the industry changed through the booming years of the London startup scene. I knew it was a great time to be a software engineer so I left and returned to my roots of writing software full time.
I accepted a software engineer role at an audio app startup who was a client of the R&D funding advisory firm. I worked primarily on the backend infrastructure but also did a lot of frontend web work for experimenting new features. I left and later joined a health startup working on billing and insurance systems. I learned a lot about building testable software and modern infrastructure stack.
At the time of writing, I work for RevenueCat as a software engineer building in-app subscription management systems for app businesses. I’ve been here since October 2022.
I am primarily based in London, but I work only remotely as I travel for 4-6 months of the year.