This page is written as a small interview with myself.

Instead of writing a traditional About page, I decided to answer a few questions — the kind someone might ask if we were having coffee.

Who are you?

I’m Tony.

By title, I’m a product manager. In practice, I spend most of my time trying to understand how systems behave — how ideas turn into features, how features turn into workflows, and how small design decisions quietly shape people’s daily work.

I’m less interested in labels than in how things actually function.

What do you actually do?

My work mainly revolves around internal products — platforms built for employees rather than customers.

These systems are rarely flashy, but they matter deeply. When they work well, people barely notice them. When they don’t, everything slows down.

That environment has shaped how I think about software: clarity over novelty, structure over shortcuts, and long-term usability over short-term speed.

How did you start coding?

I didn’t come from a technical background.

I studied International Economics & Trade in college, and for many years my work had nothing to do with writing code. Programming felt distant — something handled by “real engineers.”

I only started learning to code in early 2023, with the help of AI assistants. At first, it was simply a way to better understand the systems I was working on.

Unexpectedly, I found it deeply engaging.

There’s a particular satisfaction in turning vague ideas into something precise — logic that runs, breaks, and improves through iteration. It felt similar to product thinking, just expressed in a stricter language.

I wrote about that early shift once, when it was still new and slightly unsettling. Since then, coding has become less about changing roles, and more about sharpening how I think.

I still consider myself a learner.

What do you like building?

I’m drawn to tools that reduce friction.

Not grand platforms or ambitious ecosystems — but the small, often invisible systems that make everyday work smoother: dashboards, workflows, internal tooling, quiet infrastructure.

The kind of things people only notice when they stop working.

What do you believe about products?

I believe good products are usually boring on the surface and thoughtful underneath.

Simplicity is rarely the result of having fewer ideas — it’s the result of carefully deciding which ones don’t belong.

Most complexity doesn’t come from technology itself, but from unclear thinking layered over time.

Why do you write?

I write to slow my thoughts down.

Ideas tend to feel complete in the mind long before they actually are. Writing forces them to reveal their gaps — the assumptions, the weak edges, the parts that don’t quite hold together.

This blog is mostly a place to think in public, quietly.

What is this blog about?

It’s not a tutorial site or a growth blog.

It’s closer to a notebook — a record of things I’m building, learning, questioning, and occasionally unlearning.

Some posts are technical. Some are about products. Some are simply reflections that didn’t fit anywhere else.

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This blog doesn’t aim to teach or persuade.

It exists mainly as a trail of thought — a way to remember how ideas formed, changed, and sometimes disappeared along the way.

If something here feels familiar, I’m glad. If not, that’s fine too.

It’s just one person thinking carefully as they build.