# Jen Liu

> Jen Liu, also publicly known as Jennifer Liu, is a Toko co-founder based in Brooklyn. An MIT computer science and engineering graduate, she worked as an engineer and product manager at Quizlet and founded the coach-matching service Uplevel. She and Erica Du began experimenting with an AI Mandarin-practice grandmother before building Toko for English learners in East Asia.

- **Role:** Co-Founder at Toko
- **Organizations:** Toko, Quizlet, Uplevel, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- **Education:** B.S., Computer Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Chinese Language, Computer Science and Technology coursework; degree not established, Zhejiang University
- **Known for:** MIT EECS | Google Undergraduate Research and Innovation Scholar, 2013-2014., Helped build Quizlet Gravity animations and published a technical explanation., Co-founded Toko, a Y Combinator Winter 2022 company.

## Career timeline

- **2013** — Interned at Quizlet.
- **2013-2014** — MIT EECS | Google Undergraduate Research and Innovation Scholar, supervised by David R. Karger; researched collaborative textbook annotations and inline exercises.
- **2014** — Graduated from MIT in May and joined Quizlet full-time after two internships; welcome announcement dated August 15.
- **2014-2017** — Software engineer at Quizlet.
- **2016** — Published Smooth Game Animations in React on February 18, explaining the animation choices behind Quizlet Gravity.
- **2017-2019** — Senior product manager at Quizlet.
- **2019-2021** — Founded Uplevel, a coach-matching concierge service.
- **2021** — Co-founded Toko with Erica Du.
- **2022** — Toko participated in Y Combinator Winter 2022.
- **2025** — Announced Toko for Mandarin in a November 6 LinkedIn post.

## Achievements

- MIT EECS | Google Undergraduate Research and Innovation Scholar, 2013-2014.
- Helped build Quizlet Gravity animations and published a technical explanation.
- Co-founded Toko, a Y Combinator Winter 2022 company.

## Latest updates

- **2025-11** — Liu announced Toko for Mandarin, explaining that the founders had used an internal version to prepare for user interviews and communicate with family; credited Kenny Wong for driving the project.

## Links

- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenkliu
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/jenkliu

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/jen-liu
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-10-14