About Me
I build durable software, useful tools, and clear notes for people who care how systems work.
Hello. 你好。 Apa khabar.
こんにちは。 Bonjour. 안녕하세요.
Hola. नमस्ते. Γεια σας.
Hey there. I’m Jewei, a senior software engineer who enjoys building useful things for product teams and for myself. jewei.toString() is my workshop and public notebook for the work.
- 15+
- years building software
- 1M+
- people served by systems I have helped build
Engineer
I have spent more than 15 years working on backend systems, product architecture, APIs, payments, and infrastructure. The systems have ranged from early product experiments to services used by more than a million people.
Laravel and PHP have been steady tools through much of that work. So have Cloudflare, AWS, distributed services, and the less glamorous work of making data and money move safely between systems.
These days, I spend less time handcrafting every line and more time designing good boundaries, steering AI-assisted workflows, and reviewing what the machines produce. Speed is useful. Clean architecture, thoughtful developer experience, and systems that age well still matter more.
Builder
I like small tools with a clear job. Claude Meter, Bopop, Uppa, and TypeID PHP started with problems I wanted to solve or questions I wanted to test.
Some become open-source packages. Some become macOS utilities. Some remain experiments. Each one teaches me something that client work does not.
Writer
Writing is how I slow the work down enough to understand it. I write about architecture, software scale, PHP, tools, and the changing practice of building with AI. The useful notes live in Writing.
I try to publish details that another engineer can use. This means commands, trade-offs, mistakes, and results instead of general advice.
Away from the keyboard
Photography
Capturing the right light, expression, or quiet detail at the right moment. Portraits, landscapes, and everyday scenes all help me notice more.
Books
Psychology, systems thinking, philosophy, science fiction, and anything that makes the world feel stranger, wider, or more understandable.
Cooking
Cooking feels a lot like coding: precision matters, but so do instinct, timing, and knowing when to stop tinkering.
Music
The right song can reset a mood, sharpen a thought, or turn an ordinary stretch of time into something cinematic.
How I think
Personality tests are imperfect shorthand, but the shorthand is sometimes useful. Myers-Briggs calls me an assertive INTJ architect (opens in new tab). The Enneagram calls me a 5w6 investigator (opens in new tab). Both descriptions point to the same habit: I like taking tangled problems apart and putting them back together as clear systems.
Say hello
I read the messages myself.
Reach out if you have an interesting software problem, want to collaborate on something useful or delightfully strange, or want to talk about code, products, books, photography, or food.