Social Media Influencer.
Incoming Software Engineer at Apple.
RTC Member.
@tinahelloworld
Tell us your story in your own words. Who are you, and what are all the things you are juggling right now, inside and outside of work?
Hello, my name is Tina Chi, and I am from South Florida. I grew up in a first-generation immigrant family and am the oldest child, so naturally I had to pioneer my own path, opportunities, and resources while growing up. I think this upbringing led me to become really independent and have high agency in terms of realizing I am fully responsible for how my life will look and that my efforts directly correlate to the outcome of my future.
Early on, I knew that I wanted to make an impact in the world that was bigger than myself. I wanted a future where I don’t have to worry about finances and the freedom to do things that my family never had the opportunity to do. I also have a younger brother, so my passion for mentoring and helping others by providing advice and wisdom has always been rooted in me.
I study computer science at the University of Florida on a full-ride scholarship. I was able to be fully independent from my parents through scholarships, job opportunities, and being self-sufficient.
Currently, I just graduated and am about to start my full-time job at Apple as a software engineer. I am returning to the same team that I interned at last year (summer 2025).
I am juggling this transition from being a student to a new grad engineer, mixing in a bit of traveling before my job starts, and growing my social media platforms on Instagram, TikTok, and recently YouTube.
It honestly doesn’t seem like a lot, but managing social media platforms has a lot of things behind the scenes that most people won’t think about. It kind of is its own business, where you have to think about marketing, branding, finances, accounting, and more. I’m so grateful to have this opportunity.
For my new grad transition role, a new job is pretty demanding to get settled in. You have to relearn all the new technologies, teammates, and organizations very well to get settled into your new environment.
Some other things I’m juggling right now are trying to make friends in this new city (San Francisco) and thinking about what my life goal will be. I feel like this one takes a while to really understand because there are so many paths in life that you can take, and each one is not necessarily wrong or correct. It’s up to you to understand what you want in life and what makes you fulfilled.
When you were starting out, what did you think a “real” tech career had to look like, and where did that idea come from?
When I first started coding and aspiring to be a software engineer, I thought a real tech career was a pretty standard 9-to-5: you go to work, you code on something, you work in a team, and then you go home. The reason I thought this was because of the day-in-my-life videos that were on YouTube and how people generally perceive software engineering or tech. I always thought that it was super nerdy. I think this view of tech was because of coding and tech YouTubers I was watching at that time. The way that they were dressed, the way they talked, and the jokes they made on video molded my perspective at the time.
Tina’s Content Creation Journey
Tell us about a turn your path took that you did not plan for.
A path that I did not plan for was my content creation journey. I really never thought that I would be able to accumulate such a large community online and never thought that this would happen so quickly. I started posting my junior year, spring semester, just to share my experience breaking into tech and having a platform for women in tech perspectives. I did not know that a lot of people would resonate with it. One brand deal led to another, and now I have this full-blown business that I have been managing for a year. I have gotten so many new opportunities that I never would have thought I would have in my life, all because I started posting and kept posting online.
It was not an easy route. When I started posting computer science short-form content, a few of my classmates and friends were pretty negative and condescending about it, sharing it around and being very opinionated about it. For some reason, I didn’t let their opinions stop me, and that’s something that I’m really proud of. I’ve grown so much as a person professionally through this. I never went into computer science ever thinking I would build a career in content creation or online marketing.
I’ve actually been a pretty shy and introverted person, so this path was never something I would have predicted or planned for. I’ve been learning a lot about entrepreneurship, betting on myself, and not letting negative comments affect me.
What made you start posting on social media?
When I was at the University of Florida, I was really involved in the Women in Computer Science Engineering organization (WiSCE). I was vice president of professional development, meaning my role was to create events and promote professional advice, opportunities, and information to all 2000+ members of the organization. And I really liked doing this. I felt like I was a mentor at a bigger scale, giving advice that I wish that I had. The next best way to help students and give this advice out was to bring it online. I started posting my first TikTok in Spring 2025, right after I landed my software engineering internship at Apple.
I already knew that there was a system you can follow to land a good job or internship, and this was confirmed when I landed my role at Apple. When I started posting online, I was a lot more confident. The advice that I was giving out was reputable and effective. One viral post led to another, and so many students reached out asking for advice, saying how they landed their dream job because of me. That feeling was really rewarding.
I also really liked building cool projects. It feels infinitely more rewarding when I post it online, and it gets a lot of views, people really enjoy it, and they ask for the code or inspo.
Pick two parts of your life that seem unrelated, like your job and something you do on the side. How do they actually help each other?
Two parts of my life that seem completely unrelated are my creative life and my technical life. I love design, whether it’s digital design, floral arrangements, fashion pieces, or iconic pop culture that shapes society. I love learning about how the things out there shape how society moves and thinks, and how they impact our wants and needs.
I think this really helps my technical side of coding projects and my engineering experience, because so many patterns that you can find in this creative side actually relate a lot to how we build technical projects, whether it’s designing something or making those logical connections. Understanding society’s desires for products also helps me shape my social media accounts better and create better products (whether it’s a post or a piece of software).
Seasons of Life
Was there a time you felt like you were falling behind? What was going on, and how do you see it now?
As a high achiever, I always feel like I’m falling behind. But, the time I felt most behind was my first year of college.
I was overly ambitious and overwhelmed myself with so many scholarship applications, hackathons, and personal projects. I neglected my academic work, and my GPA tanked a lot. I was on the brink of losing my scholarship. I also overwhelmed myself with really difficult classes and felt like everyone around me had it so easy and was always scoring really high on exams, while I was barely catching up on lectures I had missed.
Slowly and surely, I was able to bring my GPA up pretty high and get back into where I wanted to be. It was hard on me mentally, but nothing is unfixable if you tackle it little by little.
That semester/year was really difficult for me because I was way too overwhelmed. Most people don’t know this, but I was also preparing to transfer to Georgia Tech for computer science. The mixture of hard classes, extracurriculars, finding an internship, preparing to transfer, settling into a new city/making new friends, and figuring out my finances for the rest of college was too much for a clueless freshman just entering college.
Looking back at it now, I do believe everything happens for a reason, and that everyone has highs and lows. I am actually really proud that I was able to go through that and not just give up, even though I felt really discouraged by my first year’s academic performance and internship-seeking experience. College is one of the hardest times that you can go through as a very ambitious person, but after you go through that, a lot of your hard work is finally shown through the opportunities and post-grad life you worked hard for while in college!
What is one thing outside your job that you refuse to give up, and why?
One thing outside my job that I refuse to give up is learning things unrelated to my role. I am a firm believer that you can learn anything, and I mean ANYTHING. It doesn’t matter what topic it is, as long as you put dedication into it. You can learn anything. I love building cool projects: software, hardware, art, anything outside of that.Yes, I do gain a lot of coding experience in my job, but I love learning things that are totally unrelated outside. That’s something I will always have until the end.
I think this because most people go to their job, do their work, and then go home and have their mind go on autopilot. They forget to have a life outside of work, and their 5 to 9 is an opportunity to continue learning and gaining skills that can pivot you in directions you can never think of.
How do you decide whether a season of your life is going well?
I think I have a pretty average answer to this. I feel like I can tell when a season of my life is going well if I’m constantly becoming a better version of myself. This means I always get up every day and try my best out there to grow, work on my health, and connect with others very meaningfully. I like my life to be a really meaningful that’s beyond just myself, and if I feel like I’m doing that, then I would know that I have a very good season of my life.
If an 18-year-old wanted to build a tech career and also wanted a creative life, a family, a business, or a community role, and felt like she had to choose, what would you tell her?
If an 18-year-old wanted to have all of these, I would say:
- Yes, it could be hard to have everything.
- Sometimes you can’t have everything.
- Having everything is totally possible if you intertwine different parts of your life together.
What I mean by this is that if you want a tech career and a creative life, you can mix match things together. For example, if you want a tech career and a community role, you can be the one that brings people together to code or build something cool. If you want a creative life and a business, but also a tech career, you can code cool projects and turn it into software and push that out as a business.
I feel like a lot of people think that you can only have one, when in fact the world is so malleable and the opportunities out there are so infinite that it is not impossible to have it all, contrary to popular belief. In fact, what’s stopping you from making your own opportunities and making your own doors?
And sometimes you don’t need to have it all. In a world where everyone’s highlights of life are displayed online for millions to see, it may seem that you’re falling behind or that you’re not good enough. Everyone is truly on their own path and timeline, and all it takes is the right timing or opportunity to reach your goals and the things you want in life.
And finally, not everyone is meant to have everything, and it’s totally okay to choose.
What are you curious about right now that takes you somewhere new?
Some things I’m really curious about right now are creative engineering. I’m so fascinated by all the creative projects, designs, and products out there, and it’s really inspired me to learn about those. For example, I’ve been really interested in hardware engineering and creating something physical, and mixing in software. I’m also really curious about creating a product end to end.
One creator that I’ve been so inspired by is @AskCatGPT On Instagram, it is so inspiring to see that she can create a product and market it with social media. The way she carries herself so confidently and the way she explains things inspire me a lot to grow more as a creator and a builder.
Of course, when I start my job at Apple, some of this needs to be put on pause for a bit. I will keep learning after work and continue being inspired by things beyond software engineering and coding.