Hello, I’m Robin 👋

I am a Senior Front-end Engineer with over 7 years of experience crafting high-performance digital products. My career has been shaped by leading teams and architecting complex systems at industry leaders like ByteDance(TikTok) and Xiaomi.

I believe that code is the bridge between human imagination and digital reality. For me, engineering is not just about solving tickets; it’s about using technology to build seamless, intuitive experiences that empower users.

🛠 Technical Expertise

My expertise lies in designing scalable architectures and optimizing performance for complex mobile environments (H5, Hybrid, and React Native). I am deeply committed to solid engineering practices and performance tuning, ensuring teams can ship better products, faster.

While my core is in React and TypeScript, I also possess full-stack experience developing B2B cloud platforms with Node.js. Beyond the UI, I have a keen interest in algorithms, a topic I frequently dive into in my blog posts.

🎨 Beyond the Editor

I am a multi-passionate creator who thrives on learning new things. When I’m not diving into a codebase, you’ll likely find me:

  • Visual Storytelling: Capturing the world through my Osmo Pocket 3 🎥, documenting life’s moments and crafting stories through video editing 🎬. I actively share my creative work on Xiaohongshu (RED) 📕✨.

  • Reading & Writing: Dedicated to continuous growth through extensive Reading and expressing thoughts via my technical blog and personal writing 📚✍️.

  • Physical Discipline: Maintaining a peak-performance routine through the discipline of Ballet and the strength of Weightlifting 🩰🏋️.

  • Strategic Thinking: Sharpening my mind on the Chessboard ♟️. Currently advancing my tactics through Duolingo Chess, which also inspired the creation of my independent chess engine project 🦉✨.

Looking for my professional background? You can find my full resume below. If you’re interested in my work experience or would like to discuss potential collaborations, feel free to jump to the experience section or reach out directly.

📥 Download PDF Version

Ruobing (Robin) Yang

Senior Front-end Engineer
📍 Auckland, New Zealand

🚀 Summary

Senior Frontend Engineer with 7+ years of experience at global tech leaders including ByteDance (TikTok) and Xiaomi. Specializes in architecting high-performance web applications across the React ecosystem, with a strong focus on seamless UI/UX implementation 🎨. An active technical blogger passionate about sharing cutting-edge web standards and industry best practices. Currently based in Auckland, engaged with the local community through Auckland City Mission, and eager to deliver technical excellence within New Zealand’s tech sector.

🛠 Technical Skills

  • Languages: TypeScript, JavaScript (ES6+), HTML5, CSS3 (SCSS, Tailwind CSS, styled-components)
  • Frameworks & Libraries: React (Hooks, Context, Router), Next.js, Redux, Zustand, TanStack Query
  • Engineering & Architecture: Webpack, Vite, Rollup, CI/CD (Jenkins, GitLab CI, GitHub Actions)
  • Performance & Optimization: Core Web Vitals, Chrome DevTools, Bundle Optimization
  • Cross-Platform & Mobile: Hybrid App, JSBridge, React Native
  • Backend & Collaboration: Node.js, GraphQL, RESTful APIs, MongoDB, Express/Koa, WebSocket

💼 Professional Experience

Senior Front-end Engineer (Volunteer) | Auckland City Mission — Mission Grocer (Auckland, NZ)

Mar 2026 – Present | missiongrocer.co.nz

Applying my senior engineering expertise to support the local community by improving the e-commerce infrastructure for a local social enterprise using Shopify. (Liquid templates, custom CSS/JS, Shopify CLI).

  • Automated Labeling System: Recognized manual bottlenecks in product updates; independently architected an automated labeling system to enhance homepage hierarchy and user engagement.
  • Offline → Online Sign-up Flow: Observed manual friction in physical market stalls using paper forms; proposed and implemented a QR-code-to-DB digital sign-up flow, transitioning users from offline interaction to a streamlined online database, significantly boosting data accuracy and campaign exposure.
  • Accessibility (a11y): Identified accessibility gaps for diverse user groups and proactively spearheaded the integration of assistive tools, ensuring compliance with NZ web standards.
  • Cross-functional Strategy: Partnered with the Project Manager in weekly strategy sessions to proactively identify operational bottlenecks; proposed and executed end-to-end solutions that bridged the gap between community needs and technical implementation.

Senior Engineer (Independent) | China → New Zealand

Aug 2023 – Present

A proactive sabbatical focused on technical modernization, linguistic fluency, and international relocation. Acted as my own Product Manager to identify personal and technical gaps, then architected and implemented systemic solutions to achieve professional mastery.

  • Product Ownership & Engineering (WASM & React 19): Recognized the lack of intuitive analysis tools while learning chess; conceptualized, architected, and deployed Everyone Chess to bridge this gap. Integrated Stockfish (WASM) via Web Workers to provide real-time move analysis, managing the full lifecycle from UX design to Vercel deployment.

  • AI-Driven Delivery: Harnessed Claude Code and advanced LLM prompting to accelerate the development lifecycle. Demonstrated the ability to utilize AI for rapid prototyping, complex WASM debugging, and refactoring, achieving a 2x increase in feature delivery speed.

  • Systemic Growth & Infrastructure: Treated linguistic fluency and relocation as “complex projects.” Achieved IELTS 7.5 (Perfect 9.0 in Listening & Reading) and PTE 83, while engineering a technical blog using Hugo and GitHub Actions to document and share algorithmic deep-dives.

  • Performance Discipline: Applied engineering principles—discipline, precision, and strategy—to personal growth through Ballet and Competitive Chess, fostering the focus and mental resilience essential for senior technical leadership.

Senior Front-end Engineer | ByteDance

Apr 2019 – Aug 2023

Led the frontend team for Douyin’s consumer finance core business (serving 100M+ users), responsible for technical architecture, engineering systems, and team development.

  • Architecture Migration: Spearheaded the transition from legacy Vue to React + TS, boosting page performance by 20% and feature iteration speed by 35%.
  • Performance Optimization: Optimized First Contentful Paint (FCP) by implementing Bundle Analysis, Code Splitting, and Tree Shaking; leveraged Service Workers and HTTP Caching to achieve a 40% reduction in initial load time.
  • Standardization: Architected a shared Internal UI Library using React and SCSS, translating high-fidelity Figma designs into responsive, high-performance web interfaces to ensure 100% design consistency across 5+ core products.
  • Cross-Platform SDK: Architected a unified JSBridge SDK for H5, ensuring 100% UI consistency and a 40% gain in development efficiency.
  • Infrastructure: Built a Node.js automated monitoring system, reducing production incidents by 60% through real-time error tracking and root cause analysis.
  • Team Leadership: Mentored 5+ developers and implemented a standardized end-to-end frontend workflow—encompassing Technical Design Docs (TDD), development, stringent Code Review protocols, and automated deployment; consistently earned top-tier performance ratings (E/M+).

Front-end Engineer | Xiaomi

Apr 2016 – Apr 2019

Contributing to the core development of Xiaomi’s cloud infrastructure, focusing on delivering high-concurrency management tools and modernizing legacy front-end architectures.

  • Architecture Modernization: Led the migration from legacy AngularJS to React, implementing GraphQL for efficient data fetching; refactored core modules and slashed maintenance costs by 40%.
  • Cloud Infrastructure & PaaS: Core Developer for the Xiaomi Cloud Management Platform; engineered consoles and PaaS orchestration tools, including Container Management systems to manage cloud assets efficiently.
  • Engineering Efficiency: Containerized development environments using Docker to ensure cross-team consistency and streamlined local testing.

📂 Featured Projects

chess screenshotOpen live

Chess Game

Practice chess against Stockfish — with hints that actually explain the right move.

  • React 19
  • TypeScript
  • Vite
  • Stockfish (WASM)
  • Vercel

Why I built it: I picked up chess last year on Duolingo. Playing against their AI Oscar, I only ever learned the outcome — win, lose, or draw — never why a move was good or bad. The analysis sites I tried buried beginners in jargon. So I built my own chess app: an opponent I can practice against, with hints that actually explain the right move. The goal is simple — for every beginner to understand their moves.

  • ♟️ AI Opponent: Integrated Stockfish (WASM) in a Web Worker, exposing three difficulty tiers (~400 / ~1500 / ~2800 Elo) via UCI_LimitStrength and configurable search depth.
  • 🧠 Game Engine: Wrapped chess.js in a custom useChessGame hook to manage move validation, SAN history, undo, and end-state detection (check / checkmate / draw).
  • 💡 Player UX: Built hint suggestions, captured-piece tracking, two-player pass-and-play mode, and a scrubbable move history for post-game review.
  • 🎨 Theming: Designed light/dark UI modes plus six board color schemes, persisted in localStorage and applied via data-theme and CSS variables.
Visit site GitHub
blog screenshotOpen live

Personal Portfolio / Blog

This site — Hugo + PaperMod with custom shortcodes, brand theming, and CI/CD.

  • Hugo
  • PaperMod
  • D3.js
  • GitHub Actions
  • 🎨 Brand & UX: Tailored theme aesthetics and interaction logic with custom CSS/JS for a personalized brand experience.
  • 🚀 CI/CD: Streamlined deployment via GitHub Actions, ensuring high availability and seamless content updates.
  • 🧩 Custom Shortcodes: Built a D3-powered word-cloud shortcode and a Swiper carousel shortcode reused across posts.
Visit site GitHub

🎓 Education

Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications (BUPT)

  • Master of Computer Science and Technology
  • Bachelor of Software Engineering

🌐 Languages

English (Fluent) | Mandarin Chinese (Native)

🔋 Strategic Sabbatical: Growth & Global Relocation

“Technology evolves, but the clarity of purpose is what drives true engineering excellence.”

After 7 years of high-intensity technical leadership at ByteDance and Xiaomi, I embarked on a proactive career recalibration (2023.08 – Present). This phase was a deliberate investment in my long-term professional foundation, focusing on technical depth, creative output, and global adaptability.

🗺️ Phase I: Resilience & Global Perspective

  • Performance Foundation: Rebuilt a peak-performance routine through disciplined physical training (Ballet & Weightlifting 🩰🏋️), fostering the mental resilience and focus required for high-stakes engineering leadership.

  • Cultural Exploration: Embarked on a journey across diverse cities to discover a lifestyle that balances productivity and well-being. I spent time living and exploring in Chengdu, Dali, Xi’an, Guangzhou, Shunde, and unique gems like Miyi, Baoshan, Tengchong, Mangshi, and Tongchuan. My exploration extended globally to South Korea, Thailand, Indonesia, and Singapore, fostering the cultural empathy and adaptability essential for thriving in diverse, international teams.

🗣️ Phase II: Skill Mastery & Deep-Diving

  • Linguistic Proficiency: Systematically elevated my English to professional working fluency (IELTS 7.5; PTE 83), enabling seamless collaboration and precise technical communication in the global market.

  • Deep-Diving & Modern Architecture: Transitioned from task execution to systemic thinking. I dedicated this period to mastering modern frontend principles—specifically React 19, WebAssembly (WASM), and Performance Tuning—to build a future-proof technical stack.

  • Continuous Creation & AI Harnessing: Beyond learning, I actively ship code. By leveraging AI-driven development (Claude Code), I accelerated my creative workflow to build projects like “Everyone Chess” and maintain my Technical Blog 📚✍️, translating deep-dives into community-shared knowledge.

  • Community Contribution: Successfully applied my global-scale expertise to the NZ local context by volunteering as a lead developer for Auckland Mission Grocer. I spearheaded digital transformation projects that bridged the gap between social impact and technical innovation, demonstrating how modern engineering can empower community services.

🚀 Ready for the Next Challenge

This journey has honed my ability to manage complex goals in “non-standard” environments. I return to the industry with clearer purpose, enhanced resilience, and total readiness to commit to a long-term, high-impact role.

📮 Get In Touch

“Life is not a problem to be solved, but an experience to be had.”

Currently based in Auckland, New Zealand 📍
I’m currently looking for my next challenge. Feel free to reach out.

📧 Email: [Loading...]

🐙 GitHub | 📥 Download Resume (PDF)