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FEBRUARY 20, 2025
BRAID’S TEAM
<aside> 💡 Welcome to another article in our series of Tech Team Profiles! Here, we’ll introduce you to the team building Braid’s automated engineering design technology. Linus is an experienced software engineer with a career in the gaming industry and satellites deployment.
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I started out in the games industry. What got me into it was my love for playing video games, which led me to start making my own. My first game was also my first C++ application, and I found a positive reinforcement cycle in building something, selling it, and getting feedback from users. That encouraged me to go deeper.
I worked at studios in Australia and Ubisoft Singapore for about five years, but I started feeling like I wanted to ship higher-quality products. In a commercial environment, you often don’t have full control over the end product due to time and business constraints. So, I looked for an industry where the work wasn’t strictly project-based—where I could contribute to something longer-term. That led me to physics middleware at Havok, which provides tools for game developers.
After a while, I realized I wanted to build things again rather than just support developers. A friend from Ubisoft invited me to work at a new space startup, which was an exciting opportunity. Even though I was a games programmer, I transitioned into building software for satellites. Surprisingly, it was very similar to game development—both involve targeting low-resource systems and working with constrained computational environments. That experience exposed me to more scientific ideas, which eventually led me to Braid.
Linus cooling off in summer at the Iizuna highlands.
I started programming in elementary school, around fourth grade. Later, I pursued a diploma in Information Technology with a specialization in game development at a technical school, which would be equivalent to an associate degree.
My first programming language was QuickBASIC, though I may have dabbled in Logo before that. QuickBASIC was a great starting point because it was accessible—there was no compiling, and it wasn’t punishing if you got things wrong. That early experience shaped my philosophy on programming: software should be forgiving and allow people to build things quickly. Ironically, I ended up making a career in C++, which is anything but forgiving. But I’ve always aimed to create constructs within C++ that make it easier to work with, echoing that initial experience of learning through QuickBASIC.
I don’t think those trade-offs are always real. In many cases, there’s no fundamental reason a language can’t be both performant and easy to use. The reason C and C++ dominate in performance-critical applications is largely historical—there’s already a vast ecosystem of C/C++ code, and new software has to interface with existing codebases.
That said, my favorite language is C#. It strikes a balance between being relatively high-level (like Java) while still offering good performance. It enforces memory safety, provides type safety, and generally makes development smoother compared to C++. Unfortunately, C# isn’t widely used outside of game development and certain enterprise applications.
Since joining Braid, I’ve been learning Rust. It’s interesting because it combines low-level control with strong safety guarantees. It forces you to think about the underlying hardware but removes many of C++’s sharp edges. If I had the choice, I’d use C# for most work unless I needed Rust’s safety guarantees or had to integrate with existing C++ libraries.
I first came across Braid on LinkedIn and was drawn in by the website’s tone and vision. The idea of automating design and its potential impact, such as reducing material waste, resonated with me. A small design change can lead to massive cost and environmental savings when scaled across millions of manufactured products.
I also read previous Tech Team Profiles and found the people at Braid interesting. At my last company, I loved that I could walk up to anyone and have deep discussions about aerospace topics. I wanted to work somewhere with that same intellectual engagement, and my conversations with Braid’s team confirmed that it was the right fit.
I grew up in Singapore, lived in Australia, and spent a few years in the U.S. before moving to Japan. My initial exposure to Japanese culture came through anime and video games. But beyond that, I was looking for a society where life isn’t just about preparing for retirement.