Hi, I'm Brian Su.

I work on machine learning models for recommender systems. I've traveled the world and enjoy building side projects around my passions.

UC Berkeley (2013-2017)
Bachelor's in CS. Did robotics research in Biomimetics Millisystems Lab under Prof. Fearing, published in ICRA. Also did applied ML research in the Biometreology Lab under Prof. Baldocchi. Took a few graduate courses in ML.

Internships (2013-2017)

• Via Analytics: Startup that tried to solve bus bunching. The bus companies don't really care; riders are only marginally happier; unsurprisingly, the company failed, but this gig got me an internship at Apple.
• Apple: Data analytics to make sure Apple Maps doesn't suck. (Hint: It doesn't.) It's arguably better than Google Maps.
• Eko Devices: Built EHR integrations for smart stethoscopes. Back then, smart means that it connected to your phone. Now, it means AI.
• Google: Built ML models to make sure Google stops listening to you, otherwise referred to as speech endpointing.

Wish (2017-2021)
3rd engineer on Wish's recommender systems team. Built retrieval and ranking models. Also, built its first computer vision models, used in recommender systems and content quality.

Roblox (2021-now)
Still building retrieval and ranking models, nearly the same things at Wish. 6th engineer on the homepage recommendations team, but on a much more fun product. Help 100M+ daily users find games they'll actually play.

Side Quests (ongoing)

• Travel: Traveled to 50+ countries, 6 continents. Here's a rough non-exhaustive ranking (based on how much I enjoyed it) of the countries/places I've visited:
  • S-tier: Cappadocia (hot air balloons are a must), Dolomites, solo backpacking in your 20s
  • A-tier: China, Istanbul
  • B-tier: Japan, Malaga, Italy, Switzerland, Singapore, Most of Europe
  • C-tier: Vietnam, Korea, Peru, Taiwan, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Malaysia, Australia
  • D-tier: Morocco, Indonesia, Cambodia
  • F-tier: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh
• onlyesim.com: If I'm already buying data on every trip, why not start my own travel esim service.
• Health: Above Average VO2 max, sub-2 hr half-marathon, complete a half-ironman

Some abandoned/failed projects:

• Pilot License: Flew 25 hours in a C152 towards a private pilot license. Ultimately, realized 1) there's not a lot of places that I want to fly to 2) these planes can fall out of the sky easily, so putting this dream in a holding pattern.
• Real Estate: Tried to get into Airbnb's to deduct bonus depreciation against W2 income. Helped friends buy some homes. Ultimately, not worth the time and energy.
• Parcel Prospects: Handwritten-style letters for lead generation. Wasted ~$300 on a handwriting machine that had terrible software.
• careers.so: Everyone was starting a job board, so why can't I?
• Habito: Another website to help college students find housing. My best friends and I learned that building 2-sided marketplaces for a one-time transaction is difficult. And, we sucked at WebDev. We tried building this in college, before AI tools came out.
• Creative Press: Tried selling pocket tees. Clothing has terrible margins.
• Lift Bird: Tried dropshipping fitness products. Learned that dropshipping is generally a terrible business model, as you have no control over the brand or logistics.