๐Ÿก v2026
๐Ÿ‘ ...
indie hacker ยท localization ยท jp culture ยท mom with hot takes

amrayu

Technical Program Manager by day. Indie iOS + web dev in the early mornings before the world wakes up. 18+ years wrangling software and content at scale, now building things I actually want to use.

I ship cozy, kawaii-influenced apps at the intersection of Japanese language, fan culture, and mobile-first UX for my cozy indie dev studio, MochiPixel LLC.

First-gen Vietnamese American, born a week after my parents landed after escaping with nothing from war-torn Vietnam. One mom, nine siblings, welfare, and a lot of figuring it out at the age of thirteen. Turns out that's excellent training for shipping software solo at 5am, between two kids, a hockey stick, a corporate 9-5, and whatever's left of the coffee.

In progress (1)
๐Ÿƒ
Jun 2026
MochiMon
Pokรฉmon-style kanji & kana card collector with spaced repetition
iOS
Live & active (2)
๐ŸŽญ
Feb 2022
Drama Otaku
Japanese drama community site with 450K monthly impressions
Web
๐Ÿ“–
Mar 2026
Dokkai
AI-powered Japanese reading companion with OCR & furigana
iOS
On ice (3)
โœˆ๏ธ
Jun 2026
Tabi ๆ—…
Travel journal with a Ghibli-kraft aesthetic and social sharing
iOS
๐ŸŒธ
Jun 2026
FTF โ€” For the Fans
K-pop & J-pop community: database, quizzes, and social feed
iOS
๐Ÿ“
May 2026
CozyNotes
Cozy note-taking with themed editors and iCloud sync
iOS
โšฐ๏ธ  Graveyard (10)
๐Ÿฑ
Mar 2026
Cat Matching Game
Kawaii card-matching puzzle with illustrated cats
iOS
๐ŸŒก๏ธ
Feb 2026
Mood Tracker
Daily emotional check-ins with pattern visualization
iOS
๐ŸŽจ
Aug 2025
LumaPix - AI Image Gen
Generative image creation with style packs
iOS
๐Ÿ“š
Jul 2025
Yabai - JP Flashcards
Early SRS card app โ€” the seed of everything after
iOS
๐ŸŒ
Jul 2025
Dokkai Web
Web companion to the iOS reading app
Web
๐ŸŽฌ
Jun 2025
Sabutomo
Subtitle translation memory tool with IoU auto-pairing
Web
๐Ÿ—พ
Jun 2025
Kappy
Japanese language learning web app
Web
๐Ÿค–
Jun 2025
PromptBee
AI prompt management and templating tool
Web
๐Ÿง 
May 2025
Monk Mode
Mindfulness & mood support with a gentle UX
iOS
๐Ÿคช
May 2025
ShitsuMonster - Rebranded to Delulu
J-ent quiz app for the parasocial devotee in all of us
iOS
Stack
SwiftUI SwiftData Cloudflare Workers D1 / R2 React / Vite TypeScript RevenueCat Gemini API Claude API OpenAI Whisper CloudKit APNs Localization / L10n JLPT N3 JP
Work history
๐ŸŽฎSony PlayStation
Localization Technical Program Manager
Mar 2026 โ€“ present
๐ŸŽApple
Localization Program Manager
Jul 2024 โ€“ Feb 2026
๐Ÿ’ณPayPal
Localization Program Manager
Jun 2013 โ€“ May 2024
๐ŸŽApple
Front-end / Back-end Engineer
Jan 2009 โ€“ Jun 2013
๐ŸŽฒZiff Davis / 1UP.com
Front-end Engineer
Jul 2005 โ€“ Dec 2008