👋 Hey, I'm Binliu!

This is my space where I dive deep into the unknown waters of software engineering, personal growth, and life's myriad adventures.

A Bit About Me...

I'm a software engineer with over 8 years of experience, specializing in large-scale web development.

I'm originally from China, but I'm now living in the Netherlands.

I write code at day, and read books at night.

Alongside, I'm on a continuous journey, exploring the enigmatic depths of algorithms and distributed systems.

I'm a tool aficionado, always on the hunt for productivity hacks. When it comes to my editor, I swear by Vimer!

While this space is my personal blog, it's more than a reflection of my personal voyage. I share insights on self-belief, continuous self-improvement, and my musings on the ever-evolving world of software.

My Philosophy

I cherish the spirit of exploration and learning.

I cherish intuition and creativity.

The "Aha!" moment is my favorite.

I'm a big fan of Steve Jobs, and I live by his words: Stay hungry; stay foolish.

My transition from Electrical Engineering to Computer Science as a self-taught software engineer mirrors the sentiments shared by Julia Evans:

I have one main opinion about programming, which is that deeply understanding the underlying systems you use (the browser, the kernel, the operating system, the network layers, your database, HTTP, whatever you’re running on top of) is essential if you want to do technically innovative work and be able to solve hard problems.

Same as me, I always resist being defined by tags like "you’re FE," or "you’re BE," which suggest you shouldn’t step outside your comfort zone.

I’m not that kind of person; I always want to figure out the underlying things, the principles underneath the interface. I love to dive deep into the underlying systems and understand how things work under the hood.

That’s why I taught myself web development before graduation, even though my major was Electrical Engineering. I was amazed by the web (okay, hardware is hard...) and became a front-end developer after graduation.

In my first job at Douban, I not only developed skills but also learned the spirit of craftsmanship because what you change will alter the experience of thousands of millions of users, so you must awe when shipping to production.

Then, in my job at AntGroup, I worked on building an A/B Testing platform. Statistics and probability are amazing; "If you cannot measure it, how can you improve it?" I learned not only the theory but also some data engineering skills, like how to build a data platform and data pipelines, etc.

But I didn’t stop there; after 5 years in front-end/full-stack roles, upon joining Grab, I transitioned to a backend engineer. The most significant difference between FE and BE is that you switch your perspective on the world. The technology and the theory are also different. So, I studied distributed systems, algorithms, Go, cloud services, etc. Eventually, I learned to build scalable, reliable, and high-performance systems to serve map data to millions of users.

Now, I'm learning how to build a platform that integrates diverse apps using the MFE architecture utilizing SingleSPA and Kotlin (oh, new language, new world).

So, stay hungry, stay foolish, and keep learning.

My Interested Areas

👩🏽‍💻 Building large-scale web applications / DevEx
🧰 Exploring new tools and technologies
🤖 Automating mundane tasks
📚 Reading books on personal growth and self-improvement
🧠 Exploring the depths of algorithms and distributed systems

I would love to do more of:

🎨 Creating art with code
📝 Writing about my learnings and experiences
🎙️ Sharing my knowledge with the community

Life Beyond Code...

👩‍🎤 Getting lost in melodies (Rock / LoFi / Alternative / Electronic / ...)
🎮 Breaking a sweat with my Switch
📚 Immersing myself in books
🍳 Whipping up culinary delights
🚴‍♀️‍️ Biking through the scenic routes of the Netherlands

Curious about my professional journey? Here's my Resume.