Beck ChenLinkedIn

Beck Chen

Technical Program Manager

I help global teams ship complex products.

Builder @ GAZAI.ai

I spent eight years working in the Bay Area and seven in Tokyo, including roles at Rakuten, KPMG, and Woven by Toyota.

Most recently, I was one of two product owners for Arene Virtual Vehicle at Woven by Toyota. I now manage GAZAI.ai's software development center.

View case studies LinkedIn
Experience
  • Woven by Toyota
  • GAZAI
  • KPMG
Languages
  • English
  • Mandarin
  • Japanese · JLPT N2
Beck Chen smiling while holding a doughnut in Portland, Oregon

Selected work

What I’ve led and built

Woven by Toyota · Technical Program Manager · 2022—2024

Arene Virtual Vehicle

Arene Virtual Vehicle is a test-automation product for validating vehicle software earlier, before it reaches a physical car. I was one of two product owners for a roughly 50-person development organization across Tokyo, Palo Alto, and Ann Arbor.

I led the test-automation UX for the 2026 Toyota RAV4, set product direction, shipped quarterly features, and brought the product into Toyota engineering workflows. The work helped teams find integration issues earlier and spend less time building, running, and triaging tests.

Read the Woven case study View patents

Woven by Toyota
Product
Virtual vehicle software testing
Shipped
Test-automation UX · 2026 Toyota RAV4
Scope
Roughly 50 people · three engineering hubs
Recognition
Invention of the Year · Silver · team award · named patent inventor

GAZAI · Technical Program Manager · 2024—present

GAZAI.ai and anini

GAZAI.ai is an AI creative suite for making manga, ads, images, and video. anini is an AI companion app combining real-time chat and voice with image and video generation.

I led anini from development through its iOS and Android launch in Japan and helped build GAZAI.ai from zero to 30,000+ monthly active users. I also built and managed the Taipei development team and taught live GAZAI.ai seminars.

Visit GAZAI.ai Visit anini

Read the GAZAI case study

Animated screen recording of a conversation with an anini companion character
anini · live companion interaction
anini
Cross-platform AI companion · iOS and Android
GAZAI.ai
AI creative suite · 30,000+ monthly active users
Scope
Product delivery · engineering leadership · live seminars
Team
Eight people · Taipei, Tokyo, Los Angeles
GAZAI.ai workspace showing a creation prompt and modes for slides, illustrations, brands, posters, manga, and more
GAZAI.ai · multimodal creation workspace
Beck Chen teaching generative AI to a university classroom
GAZAI.ai · live image-generation seminar

Career

Work experience

GAZAI

Technical Program Manager

Led anini through launch and helped build GAZAI.ai while running the Taipei development team.

  • AI products
  • Site leadership
  • LLM chat optimization
  • Harness engineering
  • AI-native product development

Woven by Toyota

Technical Program Manager

Co-owned Arene Virtual Vehicle, leading its test-automation experience and adoption within Toyota engineering.

  • Automotive software
  • Product ownership
  • Vehicle software testing

KPMG Ignition Tokyo

Senior Engineer and Tech Lead

Led engineers building internal audit tools, including OCR validation and fraud-detection infrastructure.

  • Audit technology
  • Engineering lead

Rakuten Kobo

Fullstack Software Engineer, contract

Modularized Kobo’s web reader for integration with its native iOS app and introduced Agile delivery practices.

  • Consumer software
  • Cross-platform integration

Pariveda Solutions

Engineering Manager

Led consulting teams delivering enterprise software, including a merchandising platform for Gap brands.

  • Enterprise delivery
  • Engineering management

HP Autonomy

Product Prototyping Engineer

Prototyped enterprise automation integrations connecting Autonomy products with client systems.

  • Enterprise automation
  • Product prototyping

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Mechanical Engineering Intern

Designed, built, and tested a rotary-percussive drill and tuned its control software for drilling performance.

  • Mechanical systems
  • Research & development

My career began in mechanical engineering and moved through software, enterprise systems, automotive, and AI.

MEng in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from Princeton University. BS in Mechanical Engineering from UCLA.

Products

Public products

A few things I’ve built independently or helped take from development to launch.

anini AI companion app conversation

anini

An AI companion app where open-ended conversations evolve into personal stories with original characters.

Available on iOS and Android.

GAZAI.ai multimodal creation workspace

GAZAI.ai

An AI creative workspace for producing images, video, manga, presentations, and visual content on an open canvas.

Veranda Slack translation bot product page

Veranda

A Slack translation bot I designed and built for multilingual teams. React with a flag to translate inside the original thread.

Outside work

Come talk to me about…

A customized Seiko dive watch with a faded red-and-blue bezel, aged dial, and brown leather strap
A finished Seiko mod

Watch modding

Making affordable watches more personal.

I take inexpensive Seiko watches apart and rebuild them with more character. Sometimes I borrow from classic Sinn or Seiko designs; other times I ghost the bezel, age the dial and hands, or replace acrylic with sapphire.

A Seiko watch dial, bezel, case, and watchmaking tools arranged during modification
Watch cases, crystal, bezel, stems, and crowns disassembled on a work surface

Contact

Let’s connect

LinkedIn is the best place to reach me. Email works too.

LinkedIn Email