# Swyx

> Shawn 'Swyx' Wang is a Singaporean-American developer, writer, and community builder who left a $350K hedge fund career to teach himself to code at 30 - then coined the term 'AI Engineer,' built one of tech's most influential AI podcasts (Latent Space), and launched the AI Engineer conference series that put 15,000 developers in rooms together to figure out what this job actually is.

- **Role:** Co-founder at AI Engineer / Latent Space; Advisor at Cognition AI
- **Organizations:** AI Engineer, Latent Space, Cognition AI, Smol AI (acquired)
- **From:** Singapore
- **Nationality:** Singaporean
- **Education:** Full-Stack JavaScript Bootcamp (FSA '17), Full Stack Academy, Self-directed web development curriculum, freeCodeCamp
- **Known for:** Coined the term 'AI Engineer' in June 2023 - now one of the fastest-growing job titles in tech, Endorsed by Andrej Karpathy, Chris Lattner, George Hotz, and Soumith Chintala, Built Latent Space to top 10 US Tech podcast on Apple Podcasts with 10M+ total listeners

## Career timeline

- **2010** — Started career as a sell-side currency options trader
- **2010-2016** — Rose to manage ~$1B in gross allocation at a top hedge fund, earning ~$350K/year
- **2016** — Left finance after burnout; joined Bloomberg-competitor startup as a non-technical PM
- **2016-2017** — Self-taught coding via freeCodeCamp in 6 months
- **2017** — Attended Full Stack Academy bootcamp ($70K tuition) in NYC
- **2017-2018** — First developer job at Two Sigma (quant hedge fund), earning ~$200K/year
- **2018-2020** — Developer Experience Engineer at Netlify; built VS Code integrations; grew React and Svelte communities
- **2018** — Published 'Learn in Public' essay - became foundational reading for millions of developers
- **2020** — Published 'The Coding Career Handbook' - 450+ pages, made $25K at launch
- **2020-2021** — Developer Experience at Amazon Web Services (AWS)
- **2022** — Head of Developer Experience at Temporal.io
- **2022-2023** — Developer Relations at Airbyte
- **2022** — Co-founded Latent Space podcast with Alessio Fanelli
- **2023** — Published 'The Rise of the AI Engineer' - coined the term; Andrej Karpathy publicly endorsed it
- **2023** — Founded Smol AI; created smol-developer (viral AI coding agent on GitHub)
- **2023** — Co-founded AI Engineer conference series with Ben Dunphy; first summit sold out with 10:1 applicant ratio
- **2024** — AI Engineer World's Fair: 3,000+ attendees in SF; Jensen Huang made two surprise appearances
- **2025** — Smol AI merged into Cognition (makers of Devin); swyx joined as advisor
- **2025** — AI Engineer expanded to 4 global events; Latent Space hit 10M+ total listeners
- **2026** — Turned 40; AI Engineer scaling to 7+ global events; Latent Space launching as podcast network

## Achievements

- Coined the term 'AI Engineer' in June 2023 - now one of the fastest-growing job titles in tech
- Endorsed by Andrej Karpathy, Chris Lattner, George Hotz, and Soumith Chintala
- Built Latent Space to top 10 US Tech podcast on Apple Podcasts with 10M+ total listeners
- AI Engineer World's Fair 2024: 3,000+ attendees, Jensen Huang as surprise guest
- Created smol-developer - one of the first viral open-source AI coding agents (2023)
- Grew Svelte Society from 0 to 15,000+ members
- Moderated r/reactjs for 200,000+ developers
- Official GitHub Star and Stripe Community Expert
- Published 627+ pieces of public content on swyx.io
- The Coding Career Handbook: 450+ pages, 10-hour audiobook, $25K launch revenue
- Managed ~$1 billion in gross hedge fund allocation before pivoting to tech
- AI Engineer reached 400,000+ subscribers and 15,000+ in-person attendees globally
- Invested $500K+ across 30+ companies and funds as angel investor

## Latest updates

- **2026-04** — Turned 40 on April 22; published reflective essay 'What you can do in a decade'
- **2026-04** — AI Engineer Europe event in London (April 8-10, 2026) - first European event
- **2026-03** — Published 'How to Thought Lead (2026)' framework for building professional mindshare
- **2026-01** — Latent Space launching as a podcast network; new AI for Science show; new SF studio in Kernel building
- **2025-09** — Smol AI merged into Cognition (makers of Devin); swyx joined Cognition as advisor while continuing AI Engineer and Latent Space
- **2025-06** — Cognition grew from $1M to $73M ARR in under a year; acquired Windsurf
- **2025-01** — Moved in with partner Mada in San Francisco; wrote public 'Date Me' document that led to the relationship
- **2024-06** — AI Engineer World's Fair: 3,000+ attendees in San Francisco; Jensen Huang made two surprise appearances; 18 tracks, 150+ sessions

## Links

- Website: https://www.swyx.io
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shawnswyxwang
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/swyx
- GitHub: https://github.com/swyxio
- YouTube: https://youtube.com/swyxTV
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/swyxio/

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/swyx
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-04-26