Zihao Chen is a Senior Simulation Software Engineer in the San Francisco Bay Area with 11 years of experience blending real-time graphics, GPU-driven systems, and simulation tooling. He has driven rendering and VFX engine features at ByteDance—building high-performance GPU particle systems, shader graphs and AR/VR prototypes—and now applies that expertise to simulation work at NVIDIA. Zihao’s background uniquely pairs electrical and computer engineering with an MFA in Design and Technology, enabling him to bridge low-level performance optimization and creative tool design. He also contributes to notable open-source blockchain test infrastructure (Diem), focusing on latency measurement and robust test automation, showing an attention to performance and reliability beyond graphics. Colleagues describe him as a pragmatic engineer who converts experimental algorithms into production-ready pipelines and interactive experiences.
11 years of coding experience
7 years of employment as a software developer
Master of Fine Arts - MFA Design and Technology, Master of Fine Arts - MFA Design and Technology at Parsons School of Design - The New School
Bachelor’s Degree Electrical and Computer Engineering, Bachelor’s Degree Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue University
Diem’s mission is to build a trusted and innovative financial network that empowers people and businesses around the world.
Role in this project:
Backend Developer & Test Automation Engineer
Contributions:277 reviews, 129 commits, 234 PRs in 1 year 7 months
Contributions summary:Zihao primarily focused on enhancing the cluster-test component of the Diem repository. Their contributions include adding client-side latency statistics, integrating P99 latency metrics, and incorporating support for invalid transactions. They also refactored the test suite to support new features and improved test reliability by adding retry logic and health checks. Their work indicates a focus on performance measurement and test automation within the Diem blockchain framework.
Libra’s mission is to enable a simple global payment system and financial infrastructure that empowers billions of people.
Contributions:2 PRs, 931 pushes, 200 branches in 1 year 9 months
financialreactinfrastructurepayment-systempayment
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