Synth CLI
A code generation CLI that scaffolds full-stack TypeScript apps from schema definitions. Supports REST, GraphQL, and tRPC targets.
- TypeScript
- Node.js
- Zod
Hi, my name is
Alex Chen.
I build things for the web.
Full-stack engineer with 8 years of experience shipping products at scale. I care about clean APIs, resilient infrastructure, and interfaces that get out of the way. Currently building developer tools at Vercel.
01.
Tech Stack
TypeScript
Golang
Rust
Python
React
Next.js
Node.js
PostgreSQL
Redis
Docker
Kubernetes
AWS
02.
Featured Projects
Pulse Monitor
Real-time infrastructure monitoring dashboard with anomaly detection. Processes 50K+ events/sec using Go workers and Redis streams.
- Go
- Redis
- React
- WebSocket
Edge Functions Kit
A library of composable middleware for Cloudflare Workers and Deno Deploy. Auth, rate limiting, caching, and CORS out of the box.
- TypeScript
- Workers
- Deno
03.
Experience
Senior Software Engineer @ Vercel
2022 -- present- Lead development of the edge middleware runtime, serving 2B+ requests/month
- Designed the incremental build cache system, reducing cold builds by 60%
- Mentoring a team of 4 engineers across the platform infrastructure group
Software Engineer @ Stripe
2019 -- 2022- Built the real-time fraud detection pipeline processing 500K+ transactions/day
- Migrated the payments API from Ruby to Go, improving p99 latency by 40%
- Authored internal RFC for the distributed rate-limiting architecture
Full-Stack Developer @ Postman
2017 -- 2019- Developed the collection runner v2 with parallel execution support
- Built the team workspace collaboration features used by 100K+ teams
- Shipped the first public GraphQL API integration for Postman
04.
Writing
Edge-first Architecture: Patterns That Actually Work
Practical patterns for building applications that run at the edge without the usual cold-start headaches.
Why I Switched from REST to tRPC (and Back Again)
A candid look at the tradeoffs of end-to-end type safety versus ecosystem compatibility in large teams.
Building a Code Generator That Developers Don't Hate
Lessons learned from Synth CLI: how to make generated code feel hand-written.
05. What's next?
Get In Touch
I'm always interested in hearing about new opportunities, open-source collaborations, or just a good conversation about distributed systems. My inbox is open.
Say Hello