Hi, I’m Xiaojun

Xiaojun REN — software engineer based in Melbourne, Australia.

I’ve been building software professionally since 2008. Over that time I’ve worked across the stack — from early Java and Ruby work, through distributed systems and data pipelines with Kafka and AWS, to more recent work on platform engineering and AI adoption.

Most of what I write about here comes from things I’ve actually run into: how to structure a build pipeline so developers and CI agents share the same interface, when a configuration system has grown complex enough to justify a rewrite, how to think about agent skills as a form of team knowledge. The posts are partly for others and partly so I don’t forget.

Right now I’m spending a lot of time working with AI coding agents — figuring out how to use them well rather than just fast, and how to build reusable skills that capture team knowledge in a form agents can actually use.

I care about developer experience: feedback loops, clear interfaces, systems that don’t make you feel stupid for trying to use them. I’ve noticed the best tools tend to be the ones that make the right thing easy and the wrong thing obvious.

Outside of work, I write in both English and Chinese — partly to stay sharp in both, partly because some ideas translate differently than others.

If something I’ve written resonates, or you’ve thought about it differently, I’d genuinely like to hear — there’s a comments section on each post.