where technical depth meets creative production.
I'm Liang, a developer who builds at the intersection of backend engineering, workflow automation, and creative technology. My background spans VFX pipeline tooling, AI-assisted production, and indie SaaS — work that tends to live where technical depth meets domain-specific constraints.
Prompt Swim
An AI image gallery with pay-as-you-go credits — OpenAI generation, Stripe Checkout, and a points ledger that never double-charges.
減脂小豬
A LINE-native AI food diary — snap a meal, get a nutrition log in seconds.
into pool
An AI art series of liminal swimming pools — and why the older model made the better pictures.
Pipeline Tooling
Tools that make messy production workflows reliable and repeatable: batch processing, Houdini automation, headless rendering, and domain-driven Python that holds up in a real studio. Example: Enso Executer.
Backend Engineering
Maintainable backend systems with clean domain models and thoughtful APIs. I've integrated travel agency ticketing APIs, built ERP systems from scratch, and rebuilt legacy systems too fragile to extend.
AI in Production
AI features and AI-assisted workflows that actually help, not just add noise, especially in niche domains like VFX where models know less. I write about this concretely, not promotionally.
Creative Technology
I came from animation, including rigging on a Disney Jr. series. I think about the person using the tool, and I judge generative AI output as an image, not just an API response.
I contributed fixes to the USD Survival Guide, a well-known OpenUSD reference for VFX pipeline developers. My merged pull request corrected examples that didn't match how the USD API actually behaves, like this one:
- Sdf.AttributeSpec(prim_spec, UsdGeom.Tokens.purpose, ...)
+ Sdf.AttributeSpec(prim_spec, UsdGeom.Tokens.visibility, ...)
- UsdGeom.Primvar.IsPrimvar(primvar) # Returns: False
+ UsdGeom.Primvar.IsPrimvar(primvar) # Returns: True
Pixar and Hayao Miyazaki shaped my sense of story and craft; Cat Soup, Over the Garden Wall and Smiling Friends remind me that interesting technical work is never purely technical.
If you're building pipeline tools, adding AI or payments to a product, looking for AI visuals with a clear point of view, or thinking through a hard technical problem in creative tech — I'm interested. Email me at liangyu.chen.dev@gmail.com. You can find my code on GitHub and my writing on the blog.