From Stars to Code: Kuixi Song
By Jessica Shirley
Kuixi Song’s journey to INI student began in the astronomy department at Nanjing University in China.
After one year of study, he switched his focus from stars to code and transferred to software engineering. In search of his dream career, Kuixi logged valuable undergraduate internship experiences as an analyst with Goldman Sachs mobile team and software engineer with Microsoft AI Creation group.
“Both were great experiences, but I still found that I am more of a ‘mobile’ person, which means I can build UI and features to help users do things more easily.”
“That’s why I joined LinkedIn as an iOS intern and added some features on the LinkedIn iOS app,” said Kuixi. In fact, users who have logged onto the LinkedIn app in the past few months have likely used the code he wrote. Kuixi’s interest in iOS development started in 2016, when he set a personal goal to get published in the App Store.
“After some trials and learning, I was able to publish my first app! It felt so good when I could search my name and let my friends download the app,” said Kuixi. “Since then I have published several apps, from a Japanese wordbook to a daily task management tool, plus an ‘Astronomy Picture of the Day’ client using NASA API.”
As a 2018 Apple WWDC scholar, he visited Steve Jobs Theater and met with Apple engineers to learn about Silicon Valley culture, which inspired him to apply for graduate school in the U.S. His dream career is to build something meaningful for users.
“Now, with courses I take at CMU, I think I can better put my iOS knowledge in an industry environment and try to make a career here,” he explained.
“I’ll never regret this decision of joining CMU and being part of the INI family.”
Programmer. Vlogger. Voyager.
- M.S. in Information Technology-Mobility student
- Incoming Software Engineer at LinkedIn
- Indie iOS app developer
On Data Privacy Day, INI students weighed in on the debate over app data and shared some advice on "owning your privacy" online.
"Privacy is Not Dead": Kuixi presented at last year's Data Privacy Day poster session, hosted by Carnegie Mellon CyLab.