Hi, I'm Joshua Hsieh
I build software that's well-engineered, product-aware, and worth using.
Bluehour
Fullscreen ambient focus app for a second monitor — six live scenes with canvas-rendered particle effects, optional looping audio, and a minimal timer with session history.
Second-monitor focus · Fast scene loading · No account needed
Why I Built It
Most focus tools are either too busy or too bare. I wanted something you could put on a second monitor that looked good and stayed out of the way.
Key Product Decisions
No accounts, no onboarding. You open it and you're in a scene. It's closer to turning on a lamp than logging into a product.
Technical Architecture
Canvas particle systems (rain, haze, dust) via requestAnimationFrame loops. Howler.js for seamless audio looping. Timer state runs through a pre-session → active ↔ paused → complete machine.
What I Optimized For
Sub-second load, no friction on first open, and a visual quality that doesn't feel like a weekend project. The look is part of how it works.
Behavioral intelligence platform for zero-trust access control. Models session activity across users, devices, and apps — scoring each session with a hybrid ML pipeline, propagating risk through a live force-directed graph, and surfacing explainable policy recommendations with per-signal evidence.
Turns raw session telemetry into ranked, explainable risk decisions — so analysts focus on real threats rather than borderline noise.
Still
Private film journal built around semantic memory, not ratings. Each entry ties to a life chapter with open reflection fields. An ML resurfacing engine — drawing on pgvector embeddings, K-means clusters, and temporal signals — surfaces films back when they're most likely to mean something.
Turns a log of watched films into a living record of taste — one that resurfaces entries when they're most likely to mean something.
FinanceAI
Financial analysis web app with a machine learning pipeline for real-time fraud detection on transaction data. Features interactive risk dashboards, anomaly scoring, and alert systems — built with a Python/TypeScript stack and production-level architecture.
Puts the highest-risk transactions at the top — less noise to sort through before anything needs human attention.
Full-stack emergency response coordination platform built at SJ Hacks. Enables real-time GPS-based dispatch for first responders, role-based dashboards for dispatchers and paramedics, and live incident tracking via Mapbox — designed to reduce response times in critical situations.
Fewer manual handoffs between dispatch and first responders — one continuous view from call intake to scene arrival.
Experience
SJSU College of Engineering·Software Intern
Theta Tau·Rush Chair
Silicon Valley Church·Volunteer
MeetFresh USA·Barista
Legarza Sports·Basketball/S.T.E.A.M CoachHow I Think
Design shapes how people understand things
The way something looks changes how quickly people trust it and make sense of it. I think about visual decisions the same way I think about technical ones.
Build fast to learn. Slow down before you ship.
Moving quickly early on shows what actually matters. Once I know what's worth keeping, I hold a higher bar before it goes in front of anyone.
Real depth shows in how you handle failure
Error states and edge cases reveal whether something was carefully built or just thrown together. I try to think through what breaks before it does.
Performance is part of the product
A slow page, a janky animation, a blocking query — users don't read error logs, but they feel every stall. I treat performance like a feature, not something to fix later.
The test of a feature is whether someone uses it
Not whether it was clever to build, or impressive in a demo. I try to stay honest about that distinction.
badminton, cooking, hiking, 210 wpm — nature, basketball, movies