Hello, I am
ZHE KAI
and welcome to my website :)
part-time
machine learning engineer
_
full-time
human-being
ABOUT ME
Hello again, I'm Zhe Kai (or just Kai is fine too)! I'm a software engineer by trade, and am currently trying to solve the puzzle of global markets (wink wink). I graduted from the Renaissance Engineering Program from NTU (Singapore) in 2025 with a Computer Science degree and Masters in Technology Management.
That's it for the boring stuff. More importantly, I view this website as a way to showcase how I became the person I am today - The things beyond my resume. Hopefully this website gives you better insights into my past and personality.
What's important to me is not just my career, but balancing that with other important parts of my life like relationships, health and hobbies. I've spend a lot of time (and money) on my passions such as music, coffee and badminton. Anyway, I don't want to keep you here too long, ultimately I'm just trying my best at life. Aren't we all?
That's it for the boring stuff. More importantly, I view this website as a way to showcase how I became the person I am today - The things beyond my resume. Hopefully this website gives you better insights into my past and personality.
What's important to me is not just my career, but balancing that with other important parts of my life like relationships, health and hobbies. I've spend a lot of time (and money) on my passions such as music, coffee and badminton. Anyway, I don't want to keep you here too long, ultimately I'm just trying my best at life. Aren't we all?
Hello again, I'm Zhe Kai (or just Kai is fine too)! I'm a software engineer by trade, and am currently trying to solve the puzzle of global markets (wink wink). I graduted from the Renaissance Engineering Program from NTU (Singapore) in 2025 with a Computer Science degree and Masters in Technology Management.
That's it for the boring stuff. More importantly, I view this website as a way to showcase how I became the person I am today - The things beyond my resume. Hopefully this website gives you better insights into my past and personality.
What's important to me is not just my career, but balancing that with other important parts of my life like relationships, health and hobbies. I've spend a lot of time (and money) on my passions such as music, coffee and badminton. Anyway, I don't want to keep you here too long, ultimately I'm just trying my best at life. Aren't we all?
That's it for the boring stuff. More importantly, I view this website as a way to showcase how I became the person I am today - The things beyond my resume. Hopefully this website gives you better insights into my past and personality.
What's important to me is not just my career, but balancing that with other important parts of my life like relationships, health and hobbies. I've spend a lot of time (and money) on my passions such as music, coffee and badminton. Anyway, I don't want to keep you here too long, ultimately I'm just trying my best at life. Aren't we all?
TECHNICAL SKILLS
PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES
OCaml
Python
Golang
C++
JavaScript
TypeScript
Java
SQL
HTML/CSS
C
MACHINE LEARNING & DATA SCIENCE
PyTorch
TensorFlow
scikit-learn
Langchain
Statistics
librosa
FRONTEND DEVELOPMENT
Next.js
React.js
Tailwind
BACKEND DEVELOPMENT
Node.js
Express.js
FastAPI
PostgreSQL
DEV-OPS
Git
Docker
Google Cloud
Vercel
OTHERS
English
Mandarin
Guitar
Piano
Drums
Barista
Badminton
Photography
TIMELINE AND RANDOM FACTS/OPINIONS
Nanyang Technological University, Renaissance Engineering Program (REP)
Aug 2021 - Dec 2025Computer Science scholar
- Got my Bachelor's in Computer Science & Master's in Technology Management
- My proudest achievement is building REP Jamband - A club where we play instruments together, plan concerts, perform for our friends and make unforgettable memories
- Performed on big stages in fronts of hundreds of people and had my wannabe rockstar moment
Jane Street Capital
May 2025 - Aug 2025Software Engineer
- Probably the reason you're even on this website
- The internship that mattered the most to me, and I truly gave it my all. Till today, the experience feels like a fever dream, but it was great.
- By far the best internship program I've experienced, and the mentorship really allowed me to grow quickly and have a high output
- I bought a bolster, blanket and melatonin to optimise my sleep
- Won the intern pool tournament and game show
- Learnt how to use a split keyboard for aura, and was subsequently influenced to buy a Moonlander
Software Engineer
- Interned during the school semester to gain some more experience and improve my Chinese
- The work itself was fairly standard backend and frontend projects, but implemented with Golang which was interesting. And I also got to work in the Linux environment quite a bit, which was one of the unexpected skills I learnt while there.
- Got to fly to Guangzhou for work and miraculously got upgraded to the Presidential Suite in the Shangri-La hotel. Had a dining room with a 10-seater table, living room with 2 sofas, and a bathtub that could fit 3 people.
- I thought it was funny that I passed the Chinese interviews and worked in the 2 biggest Chinese companies back-to-back despite not having spoken Chinese much for 8 years
TikTok
May 2024 - Sep 2024Machine Learning Engineer
- Helped you build your FYP brick by brick
- It felt very surreal to work on the recommendation system that I use everyday when doomscrolling. I never thought I would be able to work on software that was so tangible and core. The AB experiments I opened would literally affect millions of users, and I'm grateful to have been given such meaningful work despite being an intern.
- Admittedly, the learning curve is very steep - From the complex C++ infrastructure to internal tools to modern neural network architectures. I was the first intern on the Singapore team and it was quite hard for me to take everything in so quickly, so it took some time and hand-holding.
- Also, the team was fully Chinese, which made things exponentially harder as my Chinese is okay but definitely not near mainland standards.
- Nevertheless, everyone (thank you Zhiling and Yezi) was very nice and welcoming, and I think my biggest takeaways was learning to navigate complex codebases and how to unblock myself. I think being thrown in the deep end resulted in one of the biggest periods of growth for me.
- Oh, also I was a campus ambassador for TikTok
University of California, Berkeley
Aug 2023 - May 2024GLOBE Exchange Student
- Studied very challenging Computer Science & Machine Learning classes for 2 semesters, taught by some of the world's best professors. The projects and homeworks in some of these classes were very hard but extremely interesting and rewarding.
- Joined a Korean Rock Band (shoutout RaOn) & made some of my best memories and friends. Probably the peak of my music career.
- Another takeaway is the international friends I've made who are all across the world - Korea, California, New York, Hong Kong. I truly feel like my horizons and worldview has broadened, in an indescribable way.
Central Provident Fund Board
May 2023 - Aug 2024Software Engineer
- Very interesting time to work on LLMs, RAG and agents as this was when the industry was still nascent. OpenAI and Langchain were pushing changes every other day.
- I almost didn't come here as I had accepted another offer from a startup for a data analyst role but they were a day late in sending their offer letter. Thanks Bing Wen for giving me an offer in 5 hours, and more importantly believing in me and kickstarting my SWE career
- Fun fact 2 is that I was late for the interview as I forgot about it, as I already accepted the other offer (sorry Bing Wen, I was not late cause I had class).
- If anyone's read till here, CPF is genuinely one of the best places I've worked at and it will always hold a special place in my heart. Who knows maybe I'll be back someday.
Space MedTech
Jun 2022 - Dec 2022Machine Learning Engineer
- My first ever internship and I'm so grateful to have gotten this opportunity despite not knowing anything about machine learning and coding before this
- Fun fact is that Prof. Ser Wee, aka my boss, taught the first few batches of REP. I was trying to explain what REP was to him during my interview before he dropped this lore onto me.
Bishan Fire Station, SCDF
Apr 2019 - Feb 2021Rota Commander
- Led a team of 30 firemen to respond to fire & rescue emergencies
- Saved a bunch of cats from a burning house once
- Unlike most, I really enjoyed my National Service and it was a very meaningful time of my life
Anteroom Coffee Brewers
Feb 2021 - Jul 2021Barista
- Worked at a cafe to learn more about specialty coffee
- I think everyone should work in F&B at least once in their lives, it's a very grounding experience, no pun intended
- Still can't pour latte art to save my life
Hwa Chong Institution
Jan 2013 - Dec 2018Student
- Grew up, made friends, played badminton, studied hard, & had fun
Earth
Jun 2000 - PresentHuman-being
- Was born and am trying my best
EXPERIENCE
Work Experience
Projects & Competitions
CONTACT
Thanks for scrolling to the end, I realised that this website has become quite wordy as opposed to its previous renditions. But I feel like only then can I give you the full picture of who I am (professionally). If you've read through my ranting, thanks for listening to the story of my education and career path! Alas, this journey hasn't ended, and I'll probably continue to update this webiste in the future so stay tuned..? Feel free to reach out to me for anything really.
