Frontend engineer with 5 years of experience building UI components, shipping web and mobile apps, and leading company all-hands.
- Email: daphne.liu97@gmail.com
- Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/daphliu/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/thebetterdaphne
- Location: Seattle, WA
Work
Lyft, Software Engineer II Jan 2021 – Apr 9
- Led cross-functional projects in Lyft’s web app, enabling shared rides, notifications on web, and autofill sms code.
- Transitioned to be the only full-time web eng on Design Systems to make UI components in React, TypeScript, and HTML/CSS, holding Lyft to WCAG 2.0 standard and saving engineering time across all of Lyft.
- Mentored summer intern to pair program on technical concepts and assist in project management.
- Lead monthly Frontend All-hands, breaking down knowledge silos and encourages company-wide adoption of latest tools.
Copysmithm Product Manager Intern Jan 2021 – Apr 9
- First Product Manager in a 15-people start-up, acting as a glue between teams & introduced product release processes.
- Led projects to revamp pricing structure and develop long-term roadmap through customer interviews and analytics.
- Increased MRR by 30%, acquired 61% new customers, and supported the company through acquisition.
Lyft, Software Developer Intern June 2020 – July 2020
- Built coupon, shortcuts, payment methods, and dark mode with React and TypeScript for Lyft on the web.
- Added support for A/B testing and created guidelines to set up experiments and control roll-out.
- Selected as one of the 4 out of 180 interns to speak to 250 students on the Intern AMA Webinar.
Yelp, Android Developer Intern Jan 2020 – Apr 2020
- Took ownership of implementation and launch for app-wide feature in the Yelp for Business Owner app.
- Using Kotlin, Koin, RxJava, built carousels with nested scrolling content to promote major business features.
- Planned and implemented architecture migration from MVP to MVI for Android alert banner with JUnit tests.
Shopify, Android Developer Intern May 2019 – Aug 2019
- Planned and implemented the WebView remote debugging feature on Shopify’s Android app.
- Developed a notification system on Android with Java, Kotlin, and GraphQL to alert merchants of plugin issues.
- Wrote advanced HTML to Android Spannable parser in Kotlin to render nested bulleted list data.
Hootsuite, Software Developer Intern Jan 2019 – Apr 2019
- Added dynamic loading, category assignment, instant search to app store admin page with React, HTML/CSS.
- Worked with cross-functional teams to launch Hootsuite app store and implemented API endpoints in Scala.
Royal Bank of Canada, Software Developer Intern May 2018 – Aug 2018
- Increased efficiency of commodity tax data lookups by 2 months per year with C# and .NET automation.
- Investigated, improved a 13-year-old system and served as single point of contact for business and QA teams.
Google, Google CodeU Mentorship program Feb 2018 – May 2018
- Selected to participate in Google CodeU, an invite-only program to be mentored by a Google engineer.
- Built a chat app in Java and introduced offline support by caching HTML pages and CSS with JavaScript.
Speaking
- Speaker, CascadiaJS Conference - CascadiaJS is a JavaScript and web conference in the Pacific Northwest. My fiance and I shared how we make cooking, laundry, & calendar management easier using NodeJS, Notion/Trello APIs and IoT. "How we Automated our Relationship" was both technical and had a comedic flair.
- Speaker, ACM Richard Tapia Conference - Tapia Conference is a conference designed to promote diversity, connect ~2000 students, faculty, researchers, and professionals from all backgrounds. My co-speaker and I facilitated a workshop called "Fueling Your Career With Coffee Chats" to break down the process of coffee chats for participants to approach it step-by-step.
- Panelist, Superposition IV - Superposition IV is the largest 24-hour hackathon for high school and college women in the Bay Area, hosted at the Uber office. I spoke on a panel to 220+ students answering questions about my experiences and and sharing advice to inspire the next generation of women in tech.
- Workshop Speaker, Hack the 6ix - Hack the 6ix is Toronto’s largest summer hackathon. I planned and taught an 1-hour workshop to 50+ students on making an Android app using Kotlin, Coroutines, Retrofit. I demonstrated how to make a simple UI and make network calls to Google Maps API through live-coding.
- Conference Panelist, Microsoft Higher Education Summit - The Microsoft Higher Education Summit is a discussion on adapting curriculum, re-skilling and internships to the growing needs of tech. I was selected by Hootsuite to speak on a panel to 150+ attendees on the changes I'm hoping to see in classes and internships. I shared my views about imposter syndrome and people tweeted about it!
Projects
Founder and Co-president, UBC Women in CS Sept 2019 - Apr 2020
- Started UBC Women in CS club, assembling a team of 10 student executives and 3 departmental sponsors, defining the mission and establishing overall infrastructure.
- Represented the club in monthly department meetings to discuss progress and changes to the Computer Science department.
- Executed 4 events throughout the term, such as paint night and board game events, reaching over 90 female CS students at UBC.
Co-Founder, UBC CS Coffee Chat Sept 2019 - Apr 2020
- Matched 150+ lower year to upper year Computer Science students at UBC for monthly coffee chats, providing a chance to ask questions and receive mentorship.
- Wrote a Python script to consume CSV data from Qualtrics forms and generate matching based on preferences.
Team Lead and AR Developer, UBC Emerging Media Lab Jan 2018 – Apr 2019
- Liaised between 7 developers and a professor to build Soil TopARgraphy, an Augmented Reality app for a soil science class, built using Unity, Vuforia, and C#.
- Project presented at 3 conferences, released on app stores, and is ready to be used by 250+ students.
Color Breakdown, Personal Project Oct 2018 – May 2020
- Wrote Progressive Web App with Typescript and React to extract prominent colors from images.
- Ported functionality to separate native Android app in Kotlin and published on Google Play.
Awards
- BC Tech Scholarship 2019 - Awarded to students who have a proven passion for technology and a desire to leave a mark in the tech sector. I was featured in a press release, magazine and was invited to meet Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
- IKB Women in Technology Scholarship 2019 - Awarded on the basis of academic achievement. Tweeted by UBC president Santa Ono.
- VISIER Service Award for Women in Computer Science 2019 - Awarded for community service and student leadership.
- UBC Grace Hopper Conference Scholarship 2018 - Attended the world's largest gathering of women in computing.
- 1st Place, Lumohacks 2017 - 1st place out of 300 participants. Built VR scenarios to help patients tackle phobias with Unity and C#.
- Finalist, nwHacks 2018 - Finalist out of 800+ participants. Devised Android app around NFC functionality to reinvent museum experience.
- 1st Place, International Genetically Engineered Machine 2015 - 1st place out of 36 teams. Genetically engineered E.coli to tackle chronic inflammation. I presented our project in front of 2,500+ participants.
Blog
- "My Remote Summer Internship at Lyft" - I wrote a blogpost to share my thoughts and learnings from my summer internsip at Lyft.
- "Making Nested Lists with Android Spannables in Kotlin" - This blog post received 2,900+ views and was published by The Startup, Medium's largest active publication followed by 631K+ people. The blog is a tutorial on how to make nested lists with Android Spannables, which I learned during my Shopify internship. I created a lean sample Android application to walk through a step-by-step approach to developers.
- "Advice from Full-timers at Hootsuite to Co-ops" - During my Hootsuite internship, I interviewed the CEO, Vice President, Director, manager, and software engineers through coffee chats to share their advice to interns from their views and experiences.
Random fun facts
- I'm a improv performer at Jet City Improv in Seattle.
- I've been roasted on stage at Socially Inept tech toast show.
- I used to be a pharmacy assistant.
- I've won a genetic engineering competition (iGEM) in high school.
- I've won a grape stomping competition.
Education
University of British Columbia Sep 2015 - May 2021
Bachelor of Science in Computer Science