HO Ching-Ru
Welcome to my secrete garden!

I like to call myself a Software Gardener. I prune bugs, water features, and sometimes plant seeds of innovation.

I believe that good design is the bridge between technology and the humanities.

My work focuses on understanding what designers actually need. Then I build tools that disappear into their workflow. I automate repetitive tasks, use AI to compress exploration time, and make typography accessible for endangered languages.

I write code that solves real problems. Systems that preserve linguistic heritage. Tools that make workflows faster without sacrificing quality. Infrastructure that works across platforms. The best engineering is invisible. Users experience the outcome, not the complexity.

When I am not sitting in front of screen, I am probably reading, writing articles, watching movies, enjoying music, free diving, playing mahjong, designing new stuff, or just exploring new things.

(opens in new window)Work Experience

(opens in new window)Software Engineer & Typeface Engineer ． justfont(opens in new window)

Taipei, Taiwan / Hybrid．Full-time．May 2022 - Present

I lead font engineering and software development across production typefaces and internal tools, combining typography expertise (OpenType, AFDKO, Glyphs) with modern development (React, Next.js, Python, TypeScript).

My work includes building AI systems that compress design workflows from months to days, creating cross-platform desktop apps for font management, engineering OpenType features for Taiwanese minority languages, and delivering open-source fonts adopted by schools and government agencies. I've shipped tools that reduced marketing workflows by 90%, solved technical challenges where no solutions existed, and contributed to fonts downloaded hundreds of thousands of times.

(opens in new window)Blockchain Developer ． Sakaba, Tempura Technologies(opens in new window)

Tokyo, Japan / Remote．Contract．February 2023 - October 2023 (9 months)

I built blockchain payment infrastructure for gaming subscriptions using Solidity and Superfluid Protocol, creating per-second billing systems with smart contracts and dual-NFT verification.

My work reduced transaction costs by 70% through technical optimization, created developer tools that simplified blockchain integration to ~20 lines of code, and delivered proven business results with 35% higher conversion rates in pilot games. The architecture I designed was later referenced in Superfluid's official documentation as an example implementation.

(opens in new window)Certifications

(opens in new window)AWS Certified Data Engineer Associate ． Amazon Web Services Training and Certification

(opens in new window)AWS Certified Machine Learning Engineer Associate ． Amazon Web Services Training and Certification

(opens in new window)AWS Certified AI Practitioner ． Amazon Web Services Training and Certification

(opens in new window)Awards

(opens in new window)Outstanding Performance ． iThome Ironman Competition 2023(opens in new window)

iThome(opens in new window)．SideProject30 Division．September 2023

The iThome Ironman Competition was an annual event that promoted learning and sharing in the tech community through daily blog posts on technical topics for 30 days. I participated in the SideProject30 division and received the Outstanding Performance Award (優選) in the individual category. This achievement highlighted my skills and dedication, demonstrated through consistent contributions to my project.

(opens in new window)Top 25% ． 2021 AI CUP Competition(opens in new window)

Artificial Intelligence Competition and Annotation Data Collection Project Office, Ministry of Education(opens in new window)．May 2021

The competition featured dialogue data from outpatient visits at National Cheng Kung University Hospital, annotated by physicians. Participants faced two prediction challenges: decision-making and risk assessment, and medical Q&A. The goal was to determine the need for further evaluations and extract relevant questions from the dialogue data.

(opens in new window)Third Runner-up ． I’m the Best Coder Challenge 2020(opens in new window)

Shopee Pte. Ltd.(opens in new window)．November 2020

The event was a one-day data analysis competition where participants tackled complex problem statements using real-world data sets to solve business issues. They were required to analyze the data and derive actionable conclusions within a limited time frame.

(opens in new window)Education

(opens in new window)Master of Science in Data Science(opens in new window) ． National Taiwan University(opens in new window) & Academia Sinica(opens in new window)

Taipei, Taiwan．September 2020 - August 2022

My research focused on Graph Neural Networks (GNNs), Self-Supervised Learning, and Deep Learning.

My thesis, titled Training Graph Neural Networks via Self-Supervised Learning: Experiments and Analysis, explored and developed three self-supervised learning methods for training GNNs. I applied these methods to molecular and bioinformatics datasets, conducting experiments in various settings. The thesis offered a detailed analysis of the outcomes, providing insights into the effectiveness of different training approaches.

(opens in new window)Bachelor of Art in Economics(opens in new window)．National Taiwan University(opens in new window)

Taipei, Taiwan．September 2016 - June 2020

I focused on analyzing contemporary economic, political, and social issues using data collection, analysis, and interpretation. The courses emphasized the development of critical thinking and technical skills, preparing us to meet the demands of a data-driven world and address complex societal problems. I was excited to deepen my expertise and apply these skills to real-world challenges.