About

I'm Zhiyan, a software engineering manager at Shopee.

I paid for my university education by freelancing as a PHP developer. After graduating, I cofounded two startups. Both failed. One was a college student community; the other was a Groupon clone. Neither taught me how to build a successful business, but both taught me how to fail and keep going.

In 2012, I moved to Singapore to pursue a PhD. I dropped out after discovering that research wasn't for me.

I joined Shopee in 2016 as a frontend developer on Seller Center. Since then, I've worked across logistics, core server infrastructure, and ShopeePay wallet. Some of my early code is probably still running today.

Now I lead the Marketplace Buyer team, building a better Shopee every day.