Shihong Chen - A humanist with an engineer's mind.

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I'm a humanist with an engineer's mind, still pretending to understand AI before it understands me. I design how people and machines talk to each other — and occasionally, they listen. I try to make organizations a little less irrational by turning chaos into systems and opinions into operating models. Over time I've learned: good systems outlive good slogans — and the best code is culture, not syntax.

Profile

👋 I'm Shihong Chen, working at the intersection of technology and human experience for a global restaurant enterprise.

🎯 I focus on digital and AI transformation, aiming to build systems that are not only technically sound but also genuinely meaningful to people.

🌏 My work spans China and the Global(U.S.), where I practice bridging different perspectives — technical and humanistic, Eastern and Western, strategic and hands-on.

Approach

💡 Thinking: I try to think systematically, connecting dots across disciplines. I spend time reflecting on why things work the way they do, not just how to make them work.

🔨 Building: I'm a builder at heart. I like to architect systems from the ground up, getting my hands dirty with code and infrastructure. DevOps mindset—if I design it, I want to understand how to deploy and maintain it too.

✨ Creating: I'm drawn to the intersection of engineering and aesthetics. Good systems should be elegant, not just functional. I believe there's an art to technical work.

🌉 Collaborating: I try to be a bridge—between technical and business teams, between global strategy and local execution, between different ways of thinking. I value bringing people together around shared goals.

Working Style

🔧 Hands-on: I prefer to understand systems deeply by building and operating them myself.

🧩 Cross-disciplinary: I draw from computer science, information science, design, and philosophy to solve problems.

🎨 Engineering aesthetics: I care about code quality, system elegance, and user experience equally.

🌐 Global-local integration: I work to adapt global best practices to local contexts thoughtfully.

🤝 Principled collaboration: I try to be rational in analysis but warm in working with people. I believe in doing the right thing, even when it's harder.

Current Focus

🤖 AI-Native Engineering: Exploring what it means to build software in an AI-first world. Not just adding AI features, but rethinking how we architect, develop, and operate systems when AI is a fundamental building block.

🧠 Humans · Information · AI: Studying the evolving relationship between people, information systems, and artificial intelligence. How do we design systems that augment human capability rather than just automate tasks?

⚡ Digital Transformation: Helping organizations navigate the shift to digital-first operations, with a focus on sustainable, people-centered change.

Education

🎓 EMBA — PKU x NU Kellogg
🎓 BS in Mechanical Engineering — SEU

Interests

📚 Reading: History, philosophy of technology, system design, and information architecture.

🛠️ Tinkering: DevOps tools, infrastructure as code, automation scripts, and exploring new programming paradigms.

🌱 Learning: Always exploring new technologies and frameworks, but more interested in fundamental principles that last.