Profile

As of August 2026

Full stack web engineer ( backend, frontend, infrastructure )
Most recently employee #1 and CTO of a startup
Born 1997
Based in Australia ( Working Holiday visa subclass 417, full work rights )

Summary

Client project work, leading a development team on a cross-company project, fully remote contract work, and then joining a startup as its first employee
Mainly Ruby on Rails, React and Next.js, owning everything from requirements to design, implementation and operation
Experience through to hiring engineers, onboarding them and building a team

Skills and experience

Skills

Ruby / Ruby on Rails - around 5 years
React / Next.js - around 3 years on projects
TypeScript / JavaScript - around 5 years
Vue.js / Nuxt.js - around 2 years on projects
Go - around 1 year on projects
Hono
AWS / Vercel / Cloudflare / Firebase
Requirements definition / database design / technology selection / application design
Linux / Docker / shell scripting ( used on every project, so years omitted )
WebRTC ( real-time collaborative editing )
Salesforce API integration
Stripe API integration

Tools

Git / GitHub
Claude Code ( AI agent )

Used at work

Java / C
Symfoware Server

Leadership and management

As CTO

From 2026

Joined a startup as its first employee and built the engineering function from nothing. The product itself had been started by outside contractors, and I took it over from there.
Hired and onboarded two engineers, growing the team to four ( one from the UK, three from Japan ).
Owned technology strategy, architecture and delivery while still writing code myself.
Also ran recruitment, supported sales and helped with bookkeeping. In a small company the engineer has to do all of it.
My goal was to build a state where shipping continues without me. That is what made a clean handover possible when I left.

As development lead

Oct 2023 - Feb 2025

Led the new development team on a cross-company project with 20+ developers.
Ran planning, specification work, spec review and PR review for my team, while still designing and implementing.
Ran client negotiation and coordination between stakeholders.

What kind of engineer I am

I do backend, frontend, infrastructure, requirements, client conversations, hiring and team leadership.
I work best in small teams where the engineer also talks to customers, makes the call, and ships.
I am product-oriented and try to understand the business side while building.

Technology is a means

I am more interested in how people think, pay attention and use language than in technology itself. At university I was drawn to behavioural economics, and my seminar was run by the novelist Shu Fujisawa.
I am not a technology enthusiast. I have little interest in chasing the newest tools, and I learn what I need, when I need it, for what I am trying to build.
So rather than specialising narrowly in technology, I want to use technology in domains that deal with people.

Bottom-up learner

I am not an academic type. Reading a textbook front to back to get the whole picture does not work for me.
I start from what I want to build, learn only the parts I need, and gradually acquire the whole picture from that accumulation.
I do not stop at "it seems to work". I repeat until I can honestly say I have got it.

I design the environment, not the willpower

I do not trust willpower. When I need to concentrate I put my phone somewhere physically out of reach, and solve it on the environment side.
I habitually extract principles from experience and apply them to other domains.

Personality

Basics

An introverted thinker, but active when it comes to working with people.
I tend to notice small changes around me.
I keep to "get one thing stronger each day". Growth itself is what motivates me.
Once I commit, the sharper the situation, the deeper I can focus.

What I am not good at

Running several things in parallel. If I narrow to one thing I can go deep, but switching costs me a lot.
Exhaustive, textbook-style learning. Trying to see the whole picture first tends to freeze me.
Losing context to notifications. That is exactly why I build environments where notifications cannot reach me.

Experience

Most recent first

Co-Founder & CTO — Yourtory Inc.

Mar 2026 - Jul 2026 ( Okinawa / Remote ) · 3 developers

Joined a startup connecting business owners with executive-level support as its first employee.
Built the engineering function from nothing, starting as the only in-house engineer.
The product had already been started by outside contractors. I took it over and drove development from there.
Hired and onboarded two engineers, growing the team to four.
Shipped the platform and its monetisation layer to production.
Left as the company entered its VC round, returning all equity.
The commercial side did not work. We shipped monetisation and it did not generate revenue. That is the thing I am now most interested in getting right.

Matching platform for business owners and executive talent

Led the productisation of a service aimed at successors of small businesses and startup founders.

Technology strategy, architecture design, technology selection
Engineer hiring, onboarding, 1on1s
Recruitment marketing, sales support, bookkeeping support
Phases: requirements, high-level design, detailed design, implementation, testing, operations

React / Hono / Vercel

Freelance Software Engineer

Jan 2025 - May 2026 ( Fully remote )

Delivered client projects for Japanese companies while continuing to study English.

Job-matching platform for the food service industry

8 developers

A product already in its operations and growth phase. I ran discovery with the product owner and owned design, implementation and operation.

Cut load time on the most-used screen from 5s to 2.5s.
Added mobile support, which the product had been missing.
Owned the consolidation of customer data spread across Salesforce and several other platforms. External integrations became my main area in the second half.
Mentored interns and reviewed code from junior and overseas engineers.
Was offered a full-time role leading the product management side, which I declined in order to pursue an international career.
Phases: requirements, high-level design, detailed design, implementation, testing, operations

React / Ruby on Rails / AWS / Salesforce API

Software Engineer → Development Lead — Tandems Inc.

Jan 2022 - Feb 2025 ( Tokyo / Remote )

Joined after an internship. Mostly client project work, moving into a development lead role partway through.

Management support tool (development lead)

Oct 2023 - Feb 2025 · 20+ developers

Assigned to migrate the product to Vue 3, but when the decision was made to rebuild it, I took over as lead of the new development team.

Managed developers across multiple companies and handled client negotiation.
Owned specification cleanup, team planning, spec review and PR review, while still designing and implementing.
Built a real-time collaborative note editor using WebRTC.
Built Outlook calendar integration and a Teams app for notifications.
Implemented permission management for multiple user roles, and email notifications.
Phases: requirements, high-level design, detailed design, implementation, testing, operations

Vue.js ( Nuxt.js ) / Ruby on Rails / AWS / WebRTC

Web app for automated share valuation

Jun 2023 - Sep 2023 · 5 people

A rebuild of a stock valuation web app, joined from the requirements stage.

Ran regular development meetings adapted to a non-technical client.
Built the admin screens and owned frontend tasks.
On the API side, built CRUD around file uploads to Cloud Storage.
Phases: requirements, high-level design, detailed design, implementation, testing

React ( Next.js ) / Go / Google Firestore

M&A matching platform, new feature

Feb 2023 - May 2023 · 20+ developers

An email campaign feature, owned from design onwards.

Worked through the design with the client company's own engineers.
Phases: high-level design, detailed design, implementation, testing

Vue.js ( Nuxt.js ) / Ruby on Rails / AWS

Book community app

Nov 2022 - Jan 2023 · 5 people

Design and development of a community app.

Built the part that identifies and categorises books from their ISBN.
Phases: requirements, high-level design, detailed design, implementation, testing

Vue.js ( Nuxt.js ) / Flutter / AWS

Ordering system for sheet metal fabricators

Apr 2022 - Oct 2022 · 5 people

Built an ordering system.

Owned the payment system built on Stripe.
Supported the overseas backend team through the regular development meetings.
Acted as assistant project manager when the PM changed.
Phases: detailed design, implementation, testing

Vue.js ( Nuxt.js )

Beauty platform maintenance

Jan 2022 - Mar 2022 · 5 people

Already in operation, so my work was small changes and testing.