Beck ChenLinkedIn

Beck Chen · Technical Program Manager

I help global teams ship complex products.

Technical program leadership across software, hardware, and the real world.

Most recently, I was one of two product owners for Arene Virtual Vehicle at Woven by Toyota. I now lead the Taipei site for GAZAI's eight-person AI team.

View selected work LinkedIn
Experience
Woven by Toyota · GAZAI · KPMG
Languages
English · Mandarin · Japanese (JLPT N2)
Beck Chen smiling while holding a doughnut in Portland, Oregon
Portland, Oregon · off the clock

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.

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

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.

Woven by Toyota

Technical Program Manager

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

KPMG Ignition Tokyo

Senior Engineer and Tech Lead

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

Rakuten Kobo

Fullstack Software Engineer, contract

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

Pariveda Solutions

Engineering Manager

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

HP Autonomy

Product Prototyping Engineer

Prototyped enterprise automation integrations connecting Autonomy products with client systems.

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Mechanical Engineering Intern

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

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

Native English and Mandarin. Japanese technical working proficiency, JLPT N2.

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.

Contact

Let’s connect

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

LinkedIn Email