Engineering @ Confluent

Luke Chui

Back in the good ol' days, people used to find new movies to watch from the newspaper, magazines, neighbors, and friends. Nowadays, we are lucky to have websites like Rotten Tomatoes, IMBD,&nbsp;Criticker.com, and a handful of others, but the platform that stands out the most has to be <a href="https://letterboxd.com/epicchewy/">Letterboxd</a>. In my opinion, it stands head and shoulders above the rest of the free, online services and is now my goto for all things movies.

Each service has their approach for providing value to movie lovers. Rotten Tomatoes is mainly focused on reviews, both amateur and professional. Many people prefer read critic reviews before deciding to watch a movie, and Rotten Tomatoes has capitalized on that, pushing their own trustworthy scoring mechanism based mainly on critic analysis. IMDB changed a lot over the years going from the main data source for movies, actors, directors, etc. to an all encompassing platform for everything media. Both of these services are fantastic and offer tons of value for most, including features like a ticketing service and related news articles.

Letterboxd is different. It is a well-done social network for everything film. Unlike the other platforms, every user can build their own movie watchlist, publish reviews/ratings for films, and follow their friends and other popular profiles. It also somehow stays up to date with every movie ever made, the <a href="https://letterboxd.com/film/casablanca/">classics</a>, today's&nbsp;<a href="https://letterboxd.com/film/parasite-2019/">blockbusters</a>, and even indie&nbsp;<a href="https://letterboxd.com/film/a-taste-of-sky/">documentaries</a>.&nbsp;

It is a true blessing that people who are on Letterboxd don't abuse the public service. The free plan that most people are on has everything and more for the average movie watcher, and there is plenty of room for trolls to push bad content. The service has done a fantastic job at content management, and therefore, everything is rather trustworthy and extremely useful for people trying to learn more about a movie or find new movies to watch. I personally find the reviews of Letterboxd much more helpful than those on the competing sites. Since there are no obvious professional movie critics, the reviews page feels much more like conversation than a formal set of reviews. Users can like and comment on reviews, and the most popular ones, which are always the high-quality reviews, are bubbled to the top. Nothing beats the community on Letterboxd.

Letterboxd perfectly exemplifies the phrase, "The whole is greater than the sum of its parts." There are countless features that I'm only starting to use, Lists, Followers, Watchlists, Likes, Diary, etc. Individually, these features could because their own standalone service, but because they are all together on one film-focused social network, their effects compound. Their scoring mechanism is another crowdsourced element of the platform, and it is a humble yet extremely precise evaluation of a movie. Anything &gt;4.0 is usually considered an all time favorite by someone or already a timeless classic. As time goes on, I am constantly finding amazing movies off of popular <a href="https://letterboxd.com/ivica_pusticki/list/finished-project-1001-movies-you-must-see/">Lists</a>, learning about <a href="https://letterboxd.com/axxu/film/a-brighter-summer-day/">how</a> my friends enjoyed films, and documenting <a href="https://letterboxd.com/epicchewy/">my film journey</a>.

Cover Photo: one of the all time greats, Yasujiro Ozu

Luke Chui blog

7. Let's Talk Movies

Goals are a declaration of a person's ambitions and aspirations. They are a way to encapsulate progress in different facets of people's lives. To have good goals means to have well-defined goals. Each goal should be measurable, should be lofty but attainable, and should push people out of their comfort zone. Here are some the goals I want to accomplish by the end of 2020. The first two goals are pretty straightforward whereas the second two are a bit more open ended.<br>

For the past almost 3 years, I've been an active rock climber, and I think a climber is a only good climber if he/she can climb V10 outdoors. Right now, I've only sent V8 outdoors, so I'm training hard to get that V10. I also think there's less value in climbing so much just for the fitness (nothing wrong with the lifestyle). Climbing is so much more than just pulling hard. It incorporates the science of movement, community, diligent training, and pursuit for personal accomplishment that becomes increasingly intricate and rewarding the harder you climb.

Ever since I was a kid, I've enjoyed watching movies, both new and old, but only recently have I started to learn about the film making process itself. The last few months of 2019 were a period of heavy reflection for me, and I found much solace and guidance in film, especially the classics from directors like Ozu, Tarkovsky, and Scorsese. I've wanted to have a long term creative project for a while now, and I think that there is no better time than now to sit down and write a beautiful story. To go one step further, I find the most complexity and elegance in film, but since I have no film background whatsoever, I'll start by writing a screenplay for a simple, yet profound short film.

This one is hard to define because as someone who has only just started his career, it's hard to know where it's headed and what skills to develop to set myself up for longterm success. I can measure this goal in terms of a promotion/raise or just a set of skills that I learned. For now, I'm rather committed to the software engineering track, so to satisfy this goal, I would have to improve both my soft skills (workplace communication/stakeholder management) and hard skills (learn a new programming language, see a large project through end to end, learn technologies like kubernetes/networking/databases, etc.) When I reflect on these goals at the end of the year, I'll probably call it a success if I feel like I have something sizable and tangible to show myself.

Like the previous goal, this goal is also difficult to measure. I feel like one problem that I have my inability to maintain focus. I feel like I'm naturally a very curious person, so I want to try to learn as many different things as possible. However, bouncing around different areas of focus leads to zero depth in any, so for 2020, I want to be able to have deep, sustained focus in select personal charters. I'll come back to how I can measure this later, haha.

Cover photo: a staircase I came across in&nbsp;Plitvice Lakes National Park, Croatia

6. Goals

For the past three weeks and for the indefinite future, my entire&nbsp;<a href="https://www.confluent.io/">company</a>&nbsp;has been working from home. On the surface, this may seem like a great change, but in reality, there are some notable tradeoffs. For today's prompt, "How are you working from home?", I think it'll be good to share my home arrangement as well as cover some of the pros and cons I've noticed with this new lifestyle.

Every week day, I wake up anywhere between 8:30-10am, scroll through slack notifications while laying under my moderately soft blanket, and eventually roll out of the bed and into the bathroom where pea size dollop of Colgate shocks me awake. And just like that, I'm right back on the grind.

For the next handful of hours, I simply sit at my childhood workstation (small-ish desk and medium sized monitor), pop in and out of too many Zoom meetings, and flutter my fingers over my Coolermaster mechanical keyboard. Sometimes I get out of my chair to satisfy my basic human requirements, but since work has been strangely demanding, I do so sparingly. Reflecting on the last couple days, I should probably step away from my keyboard more, but finding the right balance being available online, writing code, and taking sufficient breaks is not that easy.

WFH and the CA mandated "shelter in place" has undeniably taken a toll on me and my friends. To combat this cabin fever and lack of social interaction, here are a few things I have been trying do:

Nothing is more refreshing than taking in some fresh air. I feel so cooped up and restrained after sitting in my room for hours, so I try to go outside for some form of exercise. A walk, a run, a sprint, a hike, a shoot-around at a nearby basketball court, a rigorous workout after hopping the fence of a local country club, or anything else that gets the heart-rate up.&nbsp;

Nowadays, almost every basic, in-person interaction has a virtual counterpart. The gift of modern technology has blessed us with tools like Zoom, FaceTime, and every other video chatting tool available. Each piece of software along with a sprinkle of creativity can go a long way. Recently, I've participated in a virtual birthday celebration, a virtual abs workout, and a handful of virtual team happy hours!

I would say that now is a fantastic time to try something new, whether that be learning a new skill, trying a random creative activity, or cooking some new dishes. I picked up a couple of new books, started writing a lot more, and modified my workouts to be home friendly. Without the usual social distractions, people can capitalize more on the isolation and excess time and start exploring more of what the world has to offer!

I used to think that I would thrive more in a fully remote position, but after living this lifestyle, I have learned that it's not as glorious as it may sound. I somehow work a lot more, exercise noticeably less, and talk to fewer of my friends throughout the week. When I'm at home and thinking about nothing other than work, it's too easy to get caught up in a task or discussion and not notice how fast time flies by. On the other hand, it's just as easy to underutilize the time. Without teammates physically nearby, there is noticeably less pressure to produce output. If I were still in the office, I would be able to interface with my teammates and hangout on the penthouse with coworkers. I would also be able to enjoy our office perks, lunches, snacks, drinks, and extraneous supplies.

The quarantine also is not helping the cause and is probably a bigger problem than working from home indefinitely. Maybe if I were still able to grab a beer with my friends at the bar after work, I would enjoy this lifestyle a lot more.&nbsp;

"There is no color" - <a href="https://em.urspace.io/">emily</a>

Cover photo: A shot of the office rooftop.

5. I open my eyes and I'm in my office

Invented at my alma mater, UCLA, the internet has become indispensable to daily life over the last few decades. It has significantly dramatically improved workplace efficiency and has opened up unbridled access to information. It has also introduced an unprecedented level of social connectedness people have never experienced before. Just over the past ten years, we have seen a myriad of content and cultural transformations, all of which exploited human nature and the viral nature of 21st century social networks. I've never really been the type to closely follow or participate in any of these viral, internet trends, but as someone relatively active on social media, I've seen a bunch of these come and go.&nbsp;

Some of the internet phenomenons I remember from back in the day/are still happening are: (I'm definitely gonna miss 90% of them):

-- Video Content: Vine, Tiktok, Snapchat/IG stories

-- Image Content: pretty much just all the troll ass memes

-- Dead social media platforms: Tumblr, Yikyak, Yo, marco polo, 4chan, myspace, too many to list

Overall, the internet culture is constantly in flux. A video or style of meme people rave about one week can quickly become old news the next, but I guess that is just a reflection of people's dwindling attention spans coupled with the creative flexibility cell phones and social media platforms provide today. I feel like the older I get, the more distant I become to the most recent memes and artsy/edgy influencers. There are not enough hours in the day to keep up with all this content. However, the fact that content is always changing and growing is interesting. For one, it has allowed younger generations to develop a sense of identity, but also, the sheer potential of distribution has given smaller communities a chance to establish themselves online and connect with people of similar backgrounds and interests. Platforms like Twitter and Reddit are great examples of how many pockets of the world can find their place in society.

Cover photo: my buddy's halloween costume last year

4. I'm too old for this

Writing this article late because I dropped the ball last couple of nights!

For the majority of college, I was involved in the undergraduate entrepreneurial groups on campus, mainly <a href="http://bruinentrepreneurs.org/">Bruin Entrepreneurs</a> and <a href="https://lahacks.com/">LA Hacks</a>. These small pockets were comprised of talented, creative, and most importantly, driven thinkers, so naturally, we would break bread over some <a href="https://breakoutlist.com/all/">break out list</a> start-ups and often found ourselves talking the night away about random startup ideas. When you get a group of haphazard builders in one room, you never know what someone is going to say or do. To list every high potential or extremely frivolous idea would take too long, so here are some startup ideas I still happen to remember:

-- A full-body, wet-suit like thing athletes can wear in any terrain that tracks all sorts of data: heat mapping, muscle contractions, movement tracking, etc. There would be an associated piece of software that coaches would use to deeply analyze their athlete's movement. Also included would be a full feature set for training. Everything from custom performance tracking to workouts for every type of athlete across any sport.

-- Too many silly machine learning/big data products. One of my friends actually started building out a tool that would track a consumer's eye movement over any webpage and analyze all the heat map data.

-- Smart refrigerator that would keep track of produce/meat expiration dates and always know what is available in that large, cold box.

-- A credit pulling API that would banks/employers/insurers could integrate into their systems that would remove the dependence on hard pulls from major credit bureaus.

This blog post has got me reminiscing about the past, and as time goes on, the desire to build something awesome and useful continues to grow.

These past couple of years, the amount of music I listen to has grown exponentially. There are too many talented artists in the world, and nowadays, there are so many platforms to share music (<a href="https://bandcamp.com/">Bandcamp</a> is my favorite). Every week, I try to find new songs to personally enjoy but more so, share with my friends.&nbsp;I also found building themed playlists to be extremely fun and rewarding. Unfortunately, as my excitement for music grows, the number of people I share a single Spotify link grows too, and I quickly myself wanting to build a new music sharing tool.

I want this tool to have a good balance between sharing the music that I've personally been hooked on and helping my friends find music that they'll enjoy. For the v1, I'm thinking about using the <a href="https://www.twilio.com/docs/usage/api">Twilio API</a>&nbsp;to build out a two-way messaging experience, something similar to a cli where they'll have a fixed set of actions to act from. The UX might look something like this:

1. I automatically subscribe my friends to this service because I already have their phone numbers, and I start by sending them small batches of Spotify links of songs/albums/playlists. In these texts, there will be options to text back a few things like: genre, tempo, or concerts.

2. If they text back genre, the tool will text back a list of genres they can subscribe. However, these genres aren't your typical pop or RnB, but instead, I'll probably have them be some of my playlist names or titles where it'll be a good blend of genres.

3. If they text back tempo, the tool will return options for how frequent they want to receive songs from me. I'm thinking this can range from a fast as every day to monthly.

4. If they text back concerts, the tool will send them upcoming links to concerts for artists nearby.

If I really think about an ideal situation for the tool, it goes far beyond just sharing music with my friends. For the early stages, I just want to have this tool be one of the main sources of new music, but down the line, I can definitely see a reality where this tool expands into a larger service that musicians, talent agencies, and concert venues can all&nbsp; leverage. If enough people are subscribed, musicians can find value is using this service for their distribution, talent agencies can subscribe to the service to try to find up and coming artists, and concert venues, especially smaller ones, can utilize the broad marketing channels. However, all these blessings are only possible after the platform reaches a critical mass, so for now, I think I'll try to build out an mvp and share <a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3P5mP5XtLkostuiwa47Sev?si=5PsWXFJNQfqmNfgdqLv3hw">some songs</a> with my friends!

Cover photo: a lone wolf somewhere in Brussels

3. A Man on a Mission

On-brand with the self-quarantine times, today's prompt is: What are you binging?

For nearly the past three years, rock climbing has been a big and continually growing part of my life. Fun fact: it was actually my old CS professor and now close friend, <a href="http://careynachenberg.weebly.com/">Carey Nachenberg</a>&nbsp;who took me outdoor climbing for the first time and seriously got me into the sport. I started my climbing journey by joining him and friends on outdoor top rope/sport climbing trips, and that's where the love for crushing began. When people ask me about why I enjoy climbing, I tend to highlight two aspects -- the community and the doors it opens to traveling around the world. The climbing community is one of the most selfless and supportive communities I have ever been a part of. From my local indoor gym and some outdoor trips, I have met some people who I can proudly call lifelong friends. Climbing has also taken me to beautiful pockets of nature all over the world (many California national parks, Texas, Massachusetts, Sweden, and more!)&nbsp;

Recently, I started establishing concrete goals for myself in various aspects of my life. For climbing, that goal is to <b>Climb V10 Outdoors by the end of 2020</b>. Unfortunately, there have been unforeseen obstacles for this goal that I am actively trying to work around. Without access to a gym to train or outdoor parks to project hard boulders, options appear sparse, but in reality, with the help of the internet and some creativity, every climber can work through these hard times and stay in peak crushing form.

Given the perpetually deteriorating state of the world, climbers worldwide are now constrained to their home gym setups and online resources to stay in top climbing form, physically and mentally. To keep my psyche high, I have been aggressively consuming all sorts of climbing content on Youtube/Instagram -- outdoor sends and indoor vlogs for the motivation and related training videos for the fitness. Here's some stuff I enjoy!

-&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5jRwTUqG15l-BcqQHbVFtA">Mellow Climbing</a>: some of most insane outdoors sends we have ever seen featuring&nbsp;<a href="https://www.instagram.com/jwebxl/">Jimmy Webb</a>, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/dawoods89/">Daniel Woods</a>, and some of the world's strongest climbers

-&nbsp; Any sick boulders/sport routes in Bishop, Lake Tahoe, JTree, Red Rocks, other national parks

-&nbsp; Almost every outdoor climbing video on my ig explore page

-&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/opuz1337">Erik Karlsson Bouldering</a>: my favorite climbing vlog channel from Sweden, insightful climbing analysis from an awesome climbing crew. (I also <a href="https://photos.app.goo.gl/CtwdV927DEpbxiah6">met Erik</a> last year!)

-&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/ifscchannel">IFSC Highlights/Comps</a>: Streams/highlight reels of professional climbing competitions

-&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMQzIsi7kwz1_xZjqNhz9kw">Lattice Climbing</a>: goto for all things training -- conditioning, test sets, tracking/analysis, etc.

-&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/rud0062">Hoseok Lee Climbing</a>: korean moonboard crusher with content for beginner/intermediate climbers

-&nbsp; A bunch of videos for finger strength/pull strength/core/power endurance

It's a damn shame that climbers around the world have to resort to bootstrapped setups in their garages/backyard. Luckily, I have stayed sane by watching a plethora of sick outdoor sends and am attempting to maintain fitness with my portable hang board and pull-up bar. Let's hope this pandemic settles soon so everyone can bring their pads and quick-draws outdoors for some hardcore sending!

Cover Photo: old photo of me projecting European Vacation (5.12b), Bat Cave in Los Angeles

2. My Media Rabbit Holes

Starting today and for the next 14 days, urspace will be providing a series of prompts for people share their introspections. Today's prompt is: What's something you wouldn't normally tell a stranger but can put on the internet?

One of the biggest fears I have is the fear of losing intellectual elasticity as I grow older. That means being unable to do things like learn different skills or develop opposing opinions.&nbsp;After graduating with a computer science degree and starting full-time employment writing software, I realized that centering my life primarily around things related to entrepreneurship, engineering, and Silicon Valley was starting to narrow my perspectives, conversation topics, and even, aimless thoughts. I started to feel like just another cookie-cutter person working in Bay Area and really wanted to experience something different -- new feelings, new insights, or simply new conversations. Throughout my time at UCLA, I loved listening to music and made a ton of extremely artistic and creative friends, so I thought it was time to explore that world. I started going to more concerts, picked up photography, and rekindled my love for film. Having that more creative side of my life to counterbalance my rigorously technical side started opening my mind to ideas within color, expression, identity that engineering communities unfortunately, severely undervalue and under appreciate.

Recently, I have been obsessed with the art of telling a story. After watching movies like <a href="https://letterboxd.com/film/tokyo-story/">Tokyo Story</a>, <a href="https://letterboxd.com/film/in-the-mood-for-love/">In the Mood for Love</a>, and <a href="https://letterboxd.com/film/taxi-driver/">Taxi Driver</a>, I was amazed at how these directors and screenplay writers come up with and manifest these poignant yet groundbreaking narratives and am more blown away by the beauty and intricacy behind some of the more humanist films. Between music, photo, and film, I find film to be the most interesting and satisfying creative outlet. A goal of mine for 2020 is to write and publish a screenplay that tells a compelling story people everywhere can relate to. This short film screenplay is going to focus on a the evolving relationship between a child and their parent as their parent's life nears an end, highlighting some of the inflection points of that bond. I'm still in the early stages of the writing and hopefully will have something worthy of sharing with the world!

1. Internet Only Access

Software Engineer

Campus Ambassador

Modernizing public finance. Data and Backend Engineering.

8VC Fellow

Better Lending Starts with Blend -- https://blend.com
Joining the Data Model/API team.

Software Engineering Intern

LA Hacks is the largest west coast hackathon to date. I joined the team and contributed towards food operations for 1200+ mouths, sponsorships, and hacker applications. Currently, we are working to creating a more sustainable hackathon through educative and collaborative means.

Advisor | 2018
Director | 2017
Organizer, Food Ops and Sponsorships | 2016

Confluent

Software Engineer • May 2019

Sequoia Capital

Campus Ambassador • Oct 2018

Neighborly

Software Engineer • Jun 2018

8VC

8VC Fellow • May 2018

Blend

Software Engineering Intern • May 2017

LA Hacks

Director & Advisor • Jan 2016

About