Senior Software Engineer

Phong
Lam

> shipped at startups & scale-ups
> coaching engineers since 2021
> always in a rabbit hole

I build products people use. Off the clock: IEMs, watches, games, travel, and books — deep into all of it.

phongtlam@gmail.comLinkedIn ↗GitHub ↗Medium ↗Résumé
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Phong Lam
Phong Lam
San Francisco Bay Area
Available for coaching
terminal
stack React · TypeScript · Node
prev IBM · Walmart · DoorDash · Mysten Labs
now Circle · Fintech
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Career Journey

Scroll through — 5 companies · 8+ years on the road

  1. Software Engineer · IBM

    Jan 2018 — Sep 2018
    Emeryville, United States · Enterprise SaaS
    • Reimplemented the IBM Aspera on Cloud front end (AngularJS → Angular 4) for media customers serving hundreds of millions of users; delivered streaming infrastructure for the FIFA World Cup 2018 launch

  2. Senior Software Engineer · Walmart Global Tech

    Sep 2018 — Mar 2021
    San Bruno, United States · E-commerce
    • Drove front-end architecture for e-commerce item pages; led the React 15 → 16 migration for Home Category, reducing tech debt and improving developer velocity
    • Architected an internal Observers library to standardize web API integration and optimize DOM performance across the Home vertical
    • Implemented the first infinite scroll on Walmart’s Home Category page (blog post)
    • Designed the Curated Feed backend on Azure with Node.js and Cassandra for multi-region scale

  3. Software Engineer · DoorDash

    Mar 2021 — Mar 2023
    San Francisco, United States · On-demand logistics
    • Led full-stack rewrite of the Menu Editor for web and mobile (via WebView), reducing support tickets by 27% and impacting 100% of merchants
    • Boosted Merchant Mobile app engagement by 20% through UI/UX improvements and new photo-editing tools (40k+ new photos uploaded post-launch)
    • Unified the Menu Editor into the Merchant Portal, consolidating logging and metrics and paving the way for load-time and performance improvements

  4. Software Engineer · Mysten Labs

    Mar 2023 — Sep 2025
    Palo Alto, United States · Blockchain / Web3
    • Contributed to the launch of Slush wallet across web, iOS, and Android, serving millions of users
    • Led USDC integration and designed on/off-ramp flows for buying and selling tokens, partnering with Coinbase
    • Led in-wallet swap/trading integration and built portfolio performance and coin-breakdown visualizations in React Native
    • Modernized and rebuilt the suins.io frontend after inheriting it from contractors, improving code quality and UI consistency; worked extensively on the Sui block explorer

  5. Senior Software Engineer · Circle

    Sep 2025 — Present
    New York, United States · Fintech / Stablecoin payments
    • Core engineer on the team that built Arc Studio from scratch for the 2026 Arc blockchain launch: an AI-powered studio for building onchain apps, payments, stablecoins, and agents from plain-language prompts, with live preview and onchain tracing
    • Core engineer on the team that built Onramp from scratch for the Arc launch: an embeddable App Kit SDK widget for buying USDC/EURC on Arc with card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, or bank transfer, shipped as @circle-fin/onramp-kit
    • Main developer of the Circle Developer Console, the self-serve hub where developers manage API keys, complete KYB, and enable App Kit capabilities such as Onramp
    • Led development of an internal developer experience portal and streamlined tooling and processes for engineers across Circle’s core products

Current Projects

What I'm working on right now.

01Web app
Elev8 Dance Studio
Fullstack application for my wife's dance studio — schedule, pricing, and class info for her studio.
Visit ↗
02Personal
This personal site
The site you're on — Next.js, React and Tailwind, with a scroll-driven three.js road through my career.
03Infrastructure
Home network & NAS
Wiring my home network and building a NAS for storage and self‑hosted services.
04Learning
AI projects
Diving deeper into AI — both at work and in personal projects.
05Open source
spec-workflow
A Claude Code plugin for spec-driven development — writes a spec, breaks it into phases, then builds each one with a TDD agent and parallel review.
Visit ↗
06Setup
Ever evolving desk setup
Constantly tweaking my desk — monitors, keyboard, audio, and cable management. Never quite done.

Writing

Notes on engineering, interviews, and the things I keep learning.

· 22 min read

How to Trust AI-Written Code: My Spec-Driven Claude Code Workflow

Agents can write code. The harder question is whether we can trust it. How I built Claude Code agents around my own methodology, with specs, rules in files, TDD and reviews, over 100+ projects and features.

#claude-code#ai#tdd#workflow
· 12 min read

How to Add Three.js to a Portfolio Site Without Killing Performance

My site scored 35 on mobile Lighthouse, with a scroll-driven 3D career road on the home page. Here is how it got to 93 with the 3D still there.

#threejs#performance#nextjs#react
Medium

5 Pieces of Advice for Interview Prep in the Age of AI↗

I’ve had a handful of separate conversations recently with junior and mid-level engineers, and what stood out to me most was not that they…

#software-engineering#coding-interviews#ai
All writing (11) →

Where I've Traveled

22 countries (and counting) — click to zoom in.

Get in Touch

Email
Happy to connect —

Work, side projects, book recommendations, or just a good conversation.

phongtlam@gmail.com ↗
Coaching
Interview prep

I've been coaching engineers through technical interviews since 2021.

Please send me an email first before booking a meeting. Once we've connected, pick a time below and I'll send a calendar invite.