Software engineer at Ally Financial in New York. Outside work I make small things around cities, travel, and language.
I host Couchsurfers regularly and run food walks with them through Flushing and Jackson Heights on weekends, and occasionally cook Taiwanese beef noodle soup for friends, strangers, and whoever ends up at my table.
Right now I'm building Sanpo: small-group walks through neighborhoods, led by people who actually live there. NYC and Taipei to start, because those are the two cities I'm in and out of. I'm also building JourneyGenie, an agentic award-flight tool that checks whether the East Asia trip you've been daydreaming about is actually bookable, or just wishful.
I write at tianyi.sh — software, languages I'm learning, food in Queens, whatever I'm thinking through.