Hello, I'm Ambrose Chua.
I build websites, run servers and occasionally play CTFs.

Experiences

I began building websites in 2012 (when web standards were still fragmented thanks to that one horrendous browser). I've worked on quite a few Node.js projects since 2013 and recently started picking up Go and Rust. I also love to run scalable and distributed systems hence I'm trying out Kubernetes.

I've also spent 7 years using Linux systems at home (having used a laptop, Raspberry Pi, custom built desktop, Xserve and now DL360 G7). My home network used to run pfSense, but now it runs dual-stack IPv6 and IPv4 on Alpine Linux and OpenWRT on a mix of consumer and small business equipment.

• Present – Jan 2023

  Software Engineer

  MicroSec Pte. Ltd.

  Led the creation of the MicroSec Cloud platform through technical proposals and system architecture. Built and integrated the orchestration system, backend and 3rd-party APIs, and made the platform production ready.

  Improved and added features to our MicroIDS product, most importantly implementing a new high performance packet processing component in Go. Drafted proposals and wrote implementations for various features and improvements in our product.

• Dec 2022 – Apr 2022

  Co-Founder

  Happily Ever After

  Co-founder and lead software engineer. We're building a DAO focused on providing universal preventive healthcare and our mission is to add 10 billion healthy years to the planet.

  I led the development of a prototype health superapp in Flutter using Scrum practices with sleep wellness content from NUS researchers, which we ran a pilot with 20+ participants. I also researched protocols for decentralised data storage and wrote a specification for adding sharing primitives on top of a decentralised data storage protocol. I did initial work on a Dart library for the protocol.

  I helped set up the Requests for Discussion workflow and Design Thinking workflow for the team using Notion, and on-boarded everyone on the process.

• Apr 2022 – Jun 2019

  Cyber NSF

  Singapore Armed Forces

  Worked on and was the team lead for a software engineering team to build a cybersecurity automation system in TypeScript and Next.js. I set up the development practices, worked with stakeholders to set requirements, did code review, integrated various systems, handled network and system administration.

  Learned a lot about leadership, communication, team management, engineering practices and tooling through exploration and guidance.

• Apr 2019 – Jan 2019

  Co-founder & Technical Advisor

  Constant Bearing

  Worked on the mental model, user experience and design for a port-call management application with my founder. Built a prototype app in Vue.

• Jan 2019 – Jun 2018

  Co-founder

  Beep

  Attempt at developing a new communication platform based on seamless voice and text conversion. Learned a lot about teamwork, business model, funding, UI/UX and startups in the process. Especially grateful for the many mentors we met and learned so much from.

• Jun 2018 – May 2018

  Software Engineering Intern

  GovTech Singapore

  Worked on a PoC for the traintraintrain project to improve it's security, wrote an API wrapper to translate Emails into API calls, and built a Kafka setup.

See what else I'm up to

Talks

• Turning cities into time @ GoSG (Jul 2022)
• Choosing the wrong footprint @ Hackware v4.3 (Aug 2018)
• Managing services on one server with Portainer and Drone @ Docker Singapore (Dec 2017)
• Kubernetes on Container Linux @ Singapore Kubernetes User Group (Jun 2017)
• Building high availability applications @ BuildingBloCS 2017
• Edison - Taking Flight @ Hackware v1.9 (Jun 2016)

Skills

• Continuous Integration / Deployment
• Linux Administration
• Computer Networking
• Network/Computer Security
• Embedded Systems
• Distributed Systems
• Graphic and UI Design
• Server Hardware/Configuration

Languages

• TypeScript (and JavaScript)
• Go
• Dart
• Python
• SQL
• HTML/CSS/Sass
• Rust
• Java
• PHP

Frameworks

• Flutter
• React/Next
• Vue/Nuxt

Picking Up

• Pulumi

Tools

• Road Bike: Merida Scultra 901
• Camera: Nikon D610
• MacBook Pro 2016 13", iTerm, chunkwm Framework (12th Gen Intel), Fedora Silverblue, Sway/GNOME
• Development Environment: Neovim, ZSH (dotfiles)
• Distros: Fedora, CoreOS, Alpine, Gentoo
• Docker, CoreDNS, Traefik, Let's Encrypt
• Drawing: Figma, Inkscape
• Homelab: Ryzen 7 3700X PC running Fedora & ZFS, N3050 box, HP DL360 G7 in 24U
• Keyboard: Programmer Dvorak, Lily58 (3D printed case)
• Hardware: KiCad, Yihua 936, my friend's Prusa i3

Volunteering

Chairperson, GeekcampSG 2022

Coordinating the organising team for GeekcampSG 2022 and learning a lot in the process. Was a two-track event with many local technical speakers, hosted by SP Digital and sponsored by local startups.

Organiser, GeekcampSG 2021

Major contributor to the organisation of GeekcampSG 2021, an online event hosted on Gather with technical speakers from around the world.

Organiser, GeekcampSG 2020

Major contributor to the organisation of GeekcampSG 2020, an online event held in front of a green screen on Microsoft Teams with technical speakers from all around the world.

Organiser, FOSSASIA (2020)

In charge of the video team. We pulled off a last-minute addition of livestreaming that didn't go so well but worked. I gained a lot through this experience making mistakes and learning from them.

CTF Organiser, GeekcampSG 2019

Organiser, FOSSASIA (2019)

CTF Organiser, GeekcampSG 2018+

Web Developer, Photographer, BuildingBloCS 2018

Facilitator, Speaker, BuildingBloCS 2017

Video Recording, EngineersSG (2018-present)

Help record local tech meetups like Hackware, GoSG, GraphQL Singapore, Singapore CSS, SingaporeJS

Awards

International

• HITB SecConf2018 Dubai .pro CTF, 1^st Runner-up
• HITB GSEC 2018 .edu CTF, 1^st Runner-up
• Asia Pacific ICT Alliance Awards, Merit (School Project) (2015)

Local

• CrossCTF 2018, Champion
• CrossCTF 2017, 1^st Runner-up
• Hack&Roll 2016, Best Freshman/Non-Tertiary Award
• Hackathon@SG, Merit & Secondary School Prize (2015)
• Hackathon@SST, First Prize (Secondary) (2015)
• NIC Face-Off | App Development, Champions (2015)

Notable Participations

• HITB GSEC CTF, On-site Participation (2017)

Notable Projects

Check out more on GitHub