Let’s talk
Software / systems / curiosity San Jose, California

RYAN
CHOU.

I build software.
I get curious about
everything underneath.

Computer science at UC Santa Cruz.
Hands-on with code, infrastructure, and hardware.

Scroll to explore
01 / Experience Currently

Fremont, California · Aug 2026 — present

Closer to
the hardware.

Understanding a system means knowing what happens when it doesn’t work.

Quanta Manufacturing Fremont

Test Technician

Working in the testing department with switches, compute trays, and the connections that keep them running.

  • Support rack-level testing and debugging across compute trays, switches, power, cabling, and system state.
  • Built Python/Excel tooling to organize test results, surface recurring failures, and automate daily reporting.
  • Created an OSFP-board replacement SOP and improved technical documentation to make repeat procedures easier to follow.
Explore the debugging process →
Hardware DebuggingSystemsPython AutomationDocumentation
Two internships / Two perspectives

A little further
from home.

Different places. New ways to solve a problem.

01 / Osaka, Japan

July 2025

Teaching a travel
assistant where to look.

AI Engineering Intern Nanobase

Built a Mastra AI travel assistant that turns Japan travel blogs into a searchable, vector-backed knowledge base.

Read the Nanobase story →
MastraRAGEmbeddingsMCP
02 / Toronto, Canada

September 2025

Turning past fixes
into shared knowledge.

RMA & Documentation Intern Lanner Electronics Canada

Investigated historical RMA email threads to find recurring issues and confirmed fixes, then turned that knowledge into internal wiki documentation.

4 → 20

Wiki entries per day

Read the Lanner story →
PythonLocal LLMsAutomation
Across the Pacific
Osaka JPToronto CA

Explore the internship stories below.

Internship locations · City-level positions

02 / Selected projectsGitHub ↗

Built. Broken.
Figured out.

A few ways I put what I learn into practice.

DNS→PROXY→SERVICES
CONTAINERSDATANETWORKS
A small corner of the internet, self-hosted.
01 / InfrastructureOngoing

My own piece
of the internet.

Own and administer a VPS-based stack: containerized services, isolated networks, reverse proxies, databases, and email. Keeping it running is part of the project.

Explore infrastructure →
LinuxDocker · GluetunNGINX · CaddyPostgreSQL · MariaDB · RedisCloudflare DNS
02 / SoftwareContributor

Stats in Term.

A terminal statistics application built in C with a Scrum-based team. Contributed through feature branches, frequent commits, and dev-to-main merges.

Explore Stats in Term →
CUnity testsMakefileCI/CDGit
03 / Foundation

Always
learning.

2024 — 2026

UC Santa Cruz

B.S. in Computer Science

Regents Scholarship

2022 — 2024

De Anza College

Computer Science for Transfer

3.69 GPA · Dean’s List · Full IGETC/UC Certification

01 Languages

Python / Java / C / C++ / JavaScript / TypeScript / Bash / SQL / R / HTML & CSS

02 Systems & infrastructure

Linux / Git / Docker / VPS administration / VPN networking / PostgreSQL / MariaDB / Redis / NGINX / Caddy / Cloudflare DNS / SPF, DKIM & DMARC

03 Foundations & tools

Data structures & algorithms / Computer systems / Functional programming / x86 assembly / Discrete mathematics / Figma / Canva / Google Workspace / Microsoft Office

04 Human languages

Conversational Mandarin Chinese

04 / Beyond the screenA few other things about me

Not always
at a keyboard.

The same curiosity.
A different change of scenery.

Cattle grazing beside a dry hillside hiking trail overlooking the bay
01 / Taking the long wayGood company on the trail.
Three friends standing on a rocky summit beneath a clear blue sky
02 / Worth the climbA little less screen time.
Off the clock, still curious

Open it up.
Make it my own.

I like technology I can get my hands on: a modded ASUS ROG, an Xteink X4 Mini e-reader, and a digital camera whose screen I replaced.

01 / Writing

Thinking out loud.

Personal essays on relationships, philosophy, capitalism, feminism, and culture.

blog.rchou.net
02 / Listening

Usually, something’s playing.

A lot of music. A little window into my rotation.

music.rchou.net