Zixian Chen
Interests
Profile
- Stack
- Go, TypeScript, and a bit of Zig.
- Since
- 2000 on/off. Back in the Frontpage, XHTML, PHP days.
- Now
- Building a home admin app. Trying to write organic, free-range code by hand. It's tempting to let Claude Code and OpenCode do it automatically but it doesn't feel the same.
- Offline
- Building PCs (love bargains, hate cable management). Learning about product design, business, and entrepreneurship.
Work history
Day
Public sector tech, policy, comms, and service delivery roles.
Deputy Director, Service Delivery Digitalization
Build, run stuff for citizens + employees services. Also dismantle what doesn't work.
Deputy Director, Policy & Governance Directorate
Policies & funding for Govt cloud, on-prem hosting, SG Tech Stack, endpoint devices, dev toolchains.
Assistant Director, Communications Technology
Developed & bought media analytic products. Led investments in NLP & CV research.
Communications Strategist
Developed comms campaigns and strategies.
Media Relations Officer
Did public relations work. Got earned media. Managed crisis comms.
NS Policy Executive
Led NS policies for sportsmen, leave, citizenship, exit control.
Side projects
Night
Personal tools, experiments, and small products built outside the day job.
Cubby
A personal ERP for the household
Go · SvelteKit · Postgres · Grafana Cloud
- Status
- Active household app
- Problem
- Daily routines scattered across memory, chat, and calendars
- Outcome
- One dashboard for tasks, limits, bills, health, travel, and home logs
Lingo
The language of Singapore’s Public Service, explained
Go · htmx · Meilisearch · Grafana Cloud
- Status
- Live glossary and Public Service newbie guide
- Problem
- New officers encounter abbreviations and workplace language before they have the context to understand them
- Scope
- 3,500+ entries across abbreviations, branded terms and workplace phrases; 222 newbie terms, 51 essentials and quiz practice
Apptitude
Structured technology learning and decision support
SvelteKit · PostgreSQL · Meilisearch · Axiom
- Status
- Live learning and decision-support platform
- Problem
- People need different support when building technical knowledge and when accountable for a live decision
- Outcome
- Guided learning paths for foundations; Consults for live decisions
BTOnomics
Home renovation blog for budget folks
Astro · Pagefind
- Status
- Static blog rebuild
- Problem
- WordPress overhead for a focused renovation archive
- Outcome
- Fast searchable HDB renovation notes by topic
Graveyard
Retired projects, prototypes, and older builds that fed into current ones.
- Cancel Ninja
- SaaS & Dark Pattern tracker SvelteKit, Drizzle, Postgres
- Folded into Cubby
- Roamichi
- Trip management & travel planner SvelteKit, Go, Postgres, Stytch
- Folded into Cubby
- Eat Your Medicine!
- Medicine dose tracker Django, htmx, SQLite
- Folded into Cubby
Show 7 more retired builds
- Rank-a-Mate
- Drag & drop ranking v0.1 Django, htmx, SQLite
- Became Appraize
- BTOnomics (Wordpress)
- Home renovation blog for budget folks WordPress
- Became BTOnomics
- Appraize
- Drag & Drop Ranking SvelteKit, SortableJS, Drizzle, Postgres, Clerk
- Grumplr
- Reddit-lite style bulletin board Go, htmx, Templ, Postgres, Keycloak
- Meetrics
- Meeting cost calculator SvelteKit
- Rinku
- URL shortener Go
- Wronged
- Products, Problems, UX Chatbot Go, htmx, Postgres, OpenRouter