Builder / Strategist
Ideas to hardware: When I get an idea, I pick a microcontroller, wire it up and write the firmware for it, so my code ends up running on something you can hold.
I'm an electrical engineering student at San José State with a lot of software behind me. I chose EE because it lets my code leave the screen: the firmware I write runs on boards I wire, so a product ends up working exactly the way I pictured it.
I want a career in embedded systems, designing and building products from my own ideas, from the circuit up through the firmware and the interface. Right now I work as a manufacturing technician at Intel in Santa Clara, in a Class 10 cleanroom, after four years managing a Panda Express in San Jose.
Most of what I do for fun is strategy. I like games where you build the thing you win with, and then have to out-think the other side to use it.
Yu-Gi-Oh!, Pokémon and One Piece. Deck building is the part I love: one plan, a fixed number of slots, and every card has to earn its place.
The Vietnamese card game everyone calls 13. Thirteen cards each, and the whole game is reading the table: when to break a run, when to pass, and when to spend your 2s.
Strategy at full speed. Know your own strengths, find the other player's weak side, and keep pressing it until the rally is yours.
There's usually an ESP32 on my desk with wires coming out of it. Lately: a card scanner, an RPM sensor, and a 3D-printed relief-map puzzle.
What I've built, with the code on GitHub. Hardware first, because that's where I'm headed.
More on github.com/quangt0213
I'm looking for embedded systems, hardware and test engineering roles, internships included. If you're building something with a microcontroller in it, I'd like to hear about it.
