👋 Hello, folks of the Browser Company! My name is Ei-Nyung Choi and my pronouns are she/her. I have two intros. The first is the one I use when I walk into unknown tech spaces and I know I have to impress people. 😄

I’ve been in tech for 23 years, and have been an IC in various startups for the bulk of it. In the distant past, I graduated from MIT. I’ve been a part of 4 exits, was a founding engineer in a small & mighty game studio whose apps reached the top ten grossing list in the App Store and stayed there for 6 (?) years; we averaged $5M ARR/employee. I’ve managed and been a technical cofounder of my own startup. I’ve been fullstack most of my career, but have dabbled in backend, network, devops-y work, and spent 13 years in mobile (some native development, some hybrid), before returning to web development. I’m currently a Senior Staff Frontend Engineer at Slack, where I’ve been tech lead for projects that have visibly improved our product and moved our revenue, as well as overhauling the architecture of multiple internal systems. But my proudest achievement at Slack is that I have started two recurring mentorship programs, one specifically for frontends and one for Earthtones (our Employee Resource Group for employees of color) engineers, both of which are highly successful. I then scaled up the programs so that they can be run without me. I personally officially mentored 20+ engineers at Slack, from junior to staff engineers, and dozens more outside.

I know; it’s definitely braggy and makes me feel awkward! 😅 Here’s my second, the real one, for people I meet in smaller spaces, when I genuinely want to connect with them. I genuinely want to connect with you.

I don’t have a CS degree, and I’m entirely self-taught. I’m an immigrant who moved to the US when I was a kid, and we didn’t know a lick of English. My family was really danged poor. I grew up always worried about basic necessities; we were homeless a couple of short times in my life. My family has been impacted by incarceration (multiple people) and deportation (my dad). I am a first-gen college grad; navigating MIT was a huge culture shock and I barely graduated. But internet and technology changed my life — through my tech career, I was able to lift my family out poverty and financial insecurity and it’s all thanks to the people who pulled me up with them along the way. Because tech has given me so much, I am deeply invested in paying it forward, especially to folks who are from underrepresented groups. I want tech to be space where we and the most marginalized get to not just survive, but thrive. I get joy & energy out of helping people, whether it’s a resolving tech problem without a clear answer, helping someone build confidence, or coaching someone on how to be a better collaborator. I love, deeply love, seeing that spark in people when they level up and reach their goals. That was my favorite part of being a manager, mentor, and tech lead. I get joy from seeing people level up; that’s my way of being a 10x engineer. The mentorship programs are my favorite part of my career at Slack, as well as my volunteering with The Next Chapter program. 😄 In my personal life, I'm most proud of my two kids who are the light of my life. I still get hit by imposter syndrome. ❤️