&about

Hello. I'm Daniel and I work at Square as a Software Engineer. Previously I worked at Weebly (acquired by Square) doing backend development, and prior to my startup life, I developed and maintained news alerts and APIs for The Wall Street Journal. On weekends, I like working out, volunteering, running, movies, eating out and coding personal projects. Before New York City, I lived in Upstate New York and Japan. I was born and raised in China.

I probably have spent much more time coding than blogging or updating my website so my GitHub contains more recent projects.

Things I Do Well

Here are some of the applications and development tools I'm most familiar with:

  • Python, PHP
  • Django, Flask, Laravel, Vue.js
  • WordPress Themes and Plugins
  • Elastic Search, MySQL, PostgreSQL
  • XSLT
  • Heroku, AWS, Google Cloud

Heroku and Google Cloud are my choices for personal project hosting, and Python is my favorite scripting language. This is because of its elegance, and the fact that I don't have to deal with brackets and semicolons. I also have working knowledge of JavaScript, some Node.js based frameworks and NoSQL databases. I'm always thinking about new project ideas and how to put my knowledge into good practice.

I’ve worked on developing WordPress themes and plugins since undergrad, which has given me significant experience in that area. If you have a non profit website, and need some help updating or fixing bugs, please feel free to reach out to me. I’m happy to provide my skills pro bono for a good cause.

Besides Chinese (my native language), I also speak English, Spanish, Japanese (JLPT N1) and am learning Arabic (FusHa).

A Few Projects

Here are some projects from either my hobbies or job. FYI, there are some projects not listed because they are in early stage development, or not ready to showcase.

Asian American and Pacific Islander Business Collective

AAPI Business Collective

2021

AAPI Business Collective is a directory for businesses owned by Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. Since the start of Covid-19 pandemic, businesses owned by AAPI have been heavily impacted due to economic hardships, fear and racism. My friend Ada and I created AAPI Business Collective to be a platform for promoting and supporting AAPI businesses, and to be a common space for customers looking to shop at AAPI businesses.

AAPI Business Collective Website

Stack: Python, Flask, Vue.js

Emotivo Health

Emotivo Health

2019

Find your therapist match with Emotivo Health. I have long been a mental health advocate, so along with two friends, we built Emotivo Health to help people find their therapists.

Stack: Django, Python, PostgreSQL, React

Where's My Car Android App

Where's My Car Android App

2013

Where’s My Car is an easy to use app with an intuitive interface that tracks where you parked, and helps you find your car. The app's features include: save your car’s location, view road and satellite maps and open saved locations in your phone’s navigation.

Where's My Car on Google Play

Stack: Android, Java, Google Maps API

Pilot Fish WordPress Theme

Pilot Fish WordPress Theme

2012

Voted as one of the 40 Best Free Responsive WordPress Themes for 2012, Pilot Fish is a minimal and elegant WordPress portfolio theme. It is inspired by the novel 『パイロットフィッシュ』(by Osaki Yoshio) I read while living in Sendai, Japan. It is said that a pilot fish is the fish you keep in the fish tank before a tropical fish, so as to develop a sustainable environment for which to thrive later. I called my first WordPress theme Pilot Fish hoping it would help me learn more about WordPress, and contribute to better themes in the future.

Pilot Fish On WordPress

Stack: WordPress, PHP, HTML, CSS, jQuery

Daniel Zhao (赵婧仪)