Start here
Hey there! My name's Andrew Liu. I'm a Maryland native who moved to the Bay Area during the start of my engineering career. As I transitioned from Google to smaller and smaller startups, I've since left the Bay Area for the Washington DC area (known by the locals as the DMV).
What's on this site?
You can find most blog posts by scrolling around the site. If you're feeling lazy or indecisive, here are a few interesting ones to get you started:
- Real-world statistical biases that you likely face
- Whether you should leave a big company for a small company
- How to build an AI-powered chatbot
- Privacy guarantees of popular messaging apps
My Background
I'm currently at an early-stage cybersecurity startup called Stairwell. The company's still in stealth, so I'll remain light on the details. We are hiring though!
Before Stairwell, I was an engineer at Scale AI. The startup produces high-quality training data for AI applications. During my tenure there, Scale achieved unicorn status, and I started the company's machine learning infrastructure team.

At the start of my career, I worked on authentication at Google. You might see the fruits of my labor when logging in to Google or when receiving login notifications on your phone. I was also the former maintainer of Google Authenticator.
Prior to working full-time, I graduated Magna Cum Laude from the University of Maryland with a computer science degree. Within the major, I specialized in data science and cybersecurity and got my first taste of security research.
In my spare time, I enjoy playing Go. I peaked at 1 kyu back in my high school days, when I played competitively. If you play this game, I want to be your friend.
An Open Invitation
You don't have to be a passive reader. In fact, I encourage you to be the opposite.
- Find any of these topics interesting? I want to talk to you. Don't be shy.
- I love feedback. We all have our blind spots; please help me identify mine. Or feel free to just say hi.
- Hold me accountable. If you haven't seen any updates recently, call me out.
You can email me at [email protected] or message me on Twitter. To stay in the loop with updates on this website, subscribe for email updates.