Joze Kosmerl

I turn ideas into products people actually use.

8 years building in Beijing and Shanghai. I've taken crypto platforms to $200M in assets, shipped a Solana L2 from scratch, and built enterprise systems across APAC — mostly by showing up before there was anything to show up to.

Photo of Joze Kosmerl

The Short Version

I'm from Slovenia — a small country most people confuse with Slovakia. I studied Electronics and Telecommunications at the University of Ljubljana, published a paper at IEEE, and then did the thing nobody saw coming: moved to China for eight years.

Beijing and Shanghai became home. I picked up working Mandarin, navigated the Great Firewall, and built products in a tech ecosystem most Western engineers only read about — crypto platforms, social apps, Solana L2 infrastructure, enterprise order management, and custom AI agents.

I'll reach for whatever technology the problem demands. I'm interested in AI-centered workflows, building my own products, and working with teams that need someone who's done the 'we have nothing, make it real' thing a few times.

EN · English (Native) ZH · 中文 (Working) SL · Slovenščina (Native)

What I Bring

0-to-1 Builder

I've done this three times: Iconomi went from nothing to $200M in managed crypto assets. Select grew from zero to 10k active users. Sonic went from a whiteboard to a stable Solana L2 in under a year. I don't just join early — I make early work.

China + West Bridge

Eight years in Beijing and Shanghai gave me something most engineers don't have: real fluency in how China's tech ecosystem operates. Working Mandarin, dual-cluster Kubernetes across the Great Firewall, and the cultural context to make cross-border products actually work.

Full-Stack Depth

I've written Solidity smart contracts and managed Kubernetes service meshes. Built real-time systems in Elixir and shipped React Native apps. When I say full-stack, I mean from the infrastructure up to the pixel.

Crypto / Web3 Native

I've been in crypto since 2016 — before most people knew what a smart contract was. Built on EVM and Solana, shipped exchanges and L2s, handled NFTs and wallets. This isn't a pivot for me. It's where I've been.

Projects

A study app for Mandarin learners preparing for HSK exams. Built it for myself while grinding through vocabulary in Beijing — turns out other people needed it too.

China Tech Intel

In Development

An AI-powered newsletter that translates and contextualizes China's tech landscape for Western developers and investors. Pulling from Chinese-language sources most people can't access.

A social platform bridging communities across the Great Firewall. Built with Elixir, React Native, and strong opinions about what social media should actually be.

Where I've Built

  1. Estee Lauder · Senior Software Engineer

    2024 – 2026 · Remote

    Leading the Order Management backend for APAC — the system that gets orders from cart to doorstep across the region. Built a product recommendation AI agent, designed gRPC APIs, and manage multi-region Kubernetes infrastructure.

    • Elixir
    • gRPC
    • Kubernetes
    • RabbitMQ
    • AI Agents
  2. Sonic SVM · Lead Engineer

    2022 – 2024 · Beijing

    Joined when Sonic was basically a pitch deck and a Slack channel. Built the entire backend and infrastructure — EKS clusters, Istio mesh, CI/CD, monitoring, node infrastructure. Shipped a stable Solana L2 in about a year.

    • Solana
    • Elixir
    • Go
    • Kubernetes
    • Istio
    • Python
  3. Select · Lead Engineer (Part-time)

    2018 – Present · Beijing

    A social platform I've been building since 2018. Real-time messaging, recommendation engine, mobile apps, and the fun challenge of serving users on both sides of the Great Firewall with dual Kubernetes clusters.

    • Elixir
    • Go
    • React Native
    • Kubernetes
    • Python
  4. Energolabs · Senior Engineer

    2017 – 2018 · Shanghai

    Blockchain energy trading in Shanghai. Built a decentralized order book exchange on Ethereum, deployed a private PoA network, and managed the validator cluster.

    • Ethereum
    • Solidity
    • Kubernetes
    • Node.js
    • React Native
  5. Iconomi · Senior Engineer

    2016 – 2017 · Slovenia

    Got in at the very beginning. Helped run the ICO that raised $10M in three months, then built the trading engine that powered the platform's growth to $200M in managed assets.

    • Java
    • Node.js
    • PostgreSQL
    • React
  6. Cloudmondo · Backend Engineer

    2014 – 2016 · Slovenia

    My first engineering job. Backend services for a mesh WiFi management platform — event-driven architecture, real-time data collection, and the distributed systems work that shaped how I think about infrastructure.

    • Node.js
    • Cassandra
    • RabbitMQ
    • AngularJS

Got something to build?

I'm open to technical leadership, co-founder roles, and consulting — especially if you're bridging China and the West or need someone who's done the zero-to-one thing before. Even if it's just a conversation, I'm always happy to talk.