Who are you?
I am Jason, also known as CGQAQ. I live in China. Not fun but a fact: I was a Front-end developer for about five years and became a full-time browser engineer last year. Yes, through my contributions to Chromium, I actually got a job as a browser engineer to make a Chromium-based browser – my dream job.
Your hobbies? Inside or outside of tech what are the things you like to do in your free time?
My life is mostly code; I also like to listen to music, watch movies, and play video games.
What did you want to be when you were a kid?
Most people have a hero dream, but when I was a kid, my family was poor; I just wanted that when I grew up, my parents wouldn’t need to do labor work anymore and could enjoy their lives.
What led you to a career in tech?
Back in the 2010s or so, when I was a junior high school student, I was lucky enough to be exposed to a C-like language on my first phone – it was based on a platform called “冒泡平台”[1][2][3], ‘冒泡平台’ was destroyed by Android but I discovered an entirely new world on it – a world that I myself thought is good, I can create anything on it. That led me to the tech world.
Do you remember your first open source contribution?
My first contribution was actually to a C# application called v2rayN; I was using it to access the internet outside of China(yes, GFW). It lacked some features I needed, so I added those and merged them into the repo. It was a bit crappy, but useful. 🙂
How did you get involved in Chromium?
As I said, I was a Front-end developer, and I was very frustrated with the web back then. You needed a lot of hacks to write a webpage that most people would open and see exactly as you expected. The web before Chrome came out dominated the market – I would call it the Dark Ages. When I was a frontend developer, I was always curious how some feature actually worked, and I also wanted to help other web developers have less pain; that’s why I chose Chromium and started to get involved in Chromium – to learn something new, to make the web better.
What is your favorite thing/project/tech to work on?
I always love to learn something new; some say the browser is even more complicated than an OS, I couldn’t agree more. My favorite project is definitely the browser (Chromium, WebKit, and Firefox).
Tell us about the thing you’re most proud of and why?
My most proud thing is: Even though I didn’t finish high school, I became a full-time browser engineer by teaching myself how to program and how to read/write English.
What is the best connection you’ve made through open source?
I got a chance to know a lot of the best people in the area and have them review my code.
What is your #1 top tip for getting involved in the community?
Just start contributing; the first step is always the hardest. Don’t be afraid of making mistakes. Your contribution doesn’t necessarily have to be code; you can also help by triaging bugs in the bug tracker. The official documentation is always your best friend, and if you are an IM guy, not an IRC or mailing list guy, there’s a Slack channel you can request to join; there are a lot of kind friends who are glad to help you(including me)!
What’s your favorite open source conference?
I actually got three: Google IO, CppCon, and BlinkOn; they are very good!
Anything else to add?
We are making yet another Chromium-based browser that makes AI and humans work better together. You can find it here at https://lite.ego.app/ if you’re interested.
Where can people find you?
Github: https://github.com/CGQAQ
Twitter(X): https://x.com/imcgqaq
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/cgqaq.bsky.social
Email: cgqaq@chromium.org