🌟 Philosophy as a Developer

To me, software development is more than just writing code — it's the art of solving real human problems with logic and empathy. I see programming as a toolset that helps build meaningful experiences and systems that serve people. I'm fascinated by how design, performance, and simplicity come together in great software.

I'm not just chasing tech trends. I'm intentional about building with purpose, understanding trade-offs, and constantly improving how I think and communicate as an engineer.

🎨 How I Work

I start with clarity — mapping out what problem I'm solving and why it matters. I build iteratively, valuing working versions, continuous feedback, and quick wins. I believe readability trumps cleverness, writing code for people first, machines second. I'm not afraid to slow down to rethink architecture or refactor, and I see every bug or broken build as a step closer to mastery.

📚 How I Learn

I reverse-engineer open-source projects I admire, write about what I'm learning to reinforce clarity, and watch tech talks and read documentation before jumping into tutorials. I try to think like a senior dev, even as a student. My favorite resources include The Odin Project, FSDS, Clean Architecture, and forums like Stack Overflow and r/learnprogramming.

🔍 Things I'm Exploring (2025)

Currently, I'm exploring how to structure scalable Go APIs with clear boundaries, React performance patterns and component lifecycle tuning, CI/CD and cloud deployment best practices, event-driven architecture and microservices, and GitHub Copilot and AI-assisted coding for boosting productivity while keeping quality.

❤️ What Drives Me

What drives me are curiosity — I love understanding how things work under the hood — connection through collaboration and sharing with others, craft in caring deeply about clean, maintainable, purposeful code, and impact in building things that matter to real people.

🧬 Personal Core Values

I believe that who you are shapes what you build. Some principles I try to live and code by include integrity over hype — I'd rather build something stable and useful than chase empty trends. I embrace curiosity without ego, asking lots of questions and not minding not knowing, but minding not growing. I believe in resilience through simplicity — in code and life, complexity breaks while simplicity endures. And I value community over competition, preferring to uplift fellow learners rather than outdo them.

🛠️ Favorite Tools & Why I Love Them

My favorite tools reflect my values. Go is like writing poetry in a typed language — simple, fast, and opinionated. VS Code feels like home, being both light and powerful with the right extensions. Figma helps me bring structure to chaos when prototyping ideas, even though I'm no designer. Git is a magic time machine I've broken and learned to fix again and again.

🌍 My Two Worlds

Being born and raised in Hanoi and now studying in Minnesota gives me a unique dual-lens view of culture, education, and tech. I embrace both Eastern humility and Western boldness, thinking globally, coding responsibly, and learning openly wherever I am.

🤓 Fun Facts About Me

I once debugged a Go service for 5 hours only to realize I forgot defer. I sometimes write pseudocode on paper before touching the keyboard — it clears my mind. I collect quotes, with my current favorite being:

"Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it."

I can hyperfocus for hours and then forget to eat lunch.

🧱 "Build in Public" Philosophy

I'm a big believer in building in public — not just the wins, but the messy parts too. I want my GitHub commits, blog posts, and portfolio to reflect the process, not just the polished product. If someone can learn from my journey or correct my missteps, that's a win.

🗺️ What's Next for Me

In the next 6–12 months, I want to finish building a multi-user SaaS app using Go + React, start contributing regularly to open-source (even just docs!), intern at a startup where I can wear many hats and get my hands dirty, and launch my first technical blog series: "Diary of a Junior Dev".

🌱 Final Note

I don't claim to have all the answers — but I'm always improving, always listening, and always building. Whether you're here to learn with me, collaborate, or just browse — thanks for stopping by. Let's build something great.