Hi, I'm
Full-Stack Developer
I build reliable, scalable web applications. Previously at Stripe, now helping startups ship faster.
I'm a full-stack developer with 5 years of experience building web applications that people rely on every day. My work spans payment infrastructure at Stripe, zero-to-one product development at a YC startup, and now freelance consulting for growing teams.
I'm passionate about clean architecture, developer tools, and open source. I believe great software is invisible -- it just works. My approach focuses on writing code that's simple enough to understand at a glance and robust enough to run without babysitting.
When I'm not coding, you'll find me contributing to open-source projects, writing about software engineering, or exploring San Francisco's coffee shops.
A selection of things I've built.
A project management dashboard with real-time collaboration and Kanban boards. Built for teams that need structure without the overhead. Handles 50+ concurrent users with live cursor tracking and instant card updates.
Real-time file sync with conflict resolution and version history.
Network traffic visualizer turning packet data into interactive graphs.
Blazing-fast markdown blog engine with syntax highlighting and RSS.
Where I've worked and what I've built.
Self-employed
Building custom web applications for startups and SMBs. Focus on React, Node.js, and cloud infrastructure. Helping teams move from prototype to production quickly and confidently.
Stripe
Payments API team. Built internal tools that reduced incident response time by 40%. Shipped to production daily in a high-velocity, high-reliability environment.
Stackcraft (YC W20)
First engineer hire. Built the entire frontend from scratch, designed the component architecture, and scaled the platform to 10,000 users. Wore every hat from DevOps to customer support.
Technologies I work with regularly.
I'm always open to interesting projects and collaborations. Drop me a line and let's build something great.
alex@alexchen.dev