About · New York City

A builder by trade. Curious by nature.

I’m Alex, an independent software engineer in New York City. More than half a decade building products, now working directly with clients.

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Alex Tong, smiling
alex tongDesign. Build. Teach.

The person behind the work

From the Apple Store to The New York Times.

Born
New York City
Watching
Game of Thrones · Sons of Anarchy · Robot Chicken
Listening to
DJ Heartstring · SWIM · Chet Baker

Previously at and . At The New York Times, I built and maintained the access rules behind paywalls and registration walls: when to stop a reader, and what they see next.

At The New York Times, I was on the AI Champions team behind the Claude Code rollout and taught 500+ engineers to get more out of Claude. I created and co-presented three sessions, including a CLAUDE.md talk at the internal EngX conference, and became the second-most-prolific contributor to the internal plugin marketplace. On the Access team, my AI-assisted script cut per-rule migration from days to hours on a rewrite scoped as a year-plus effort.

Today, I design and build for clients and offer hands-on coaching.

Before coding, I sold products for Apple, then high-end real estate in New York City. Both taught me to understand what someone needs before deciding what to build. Outside work, I cook, make music, and write about AI tooling and side projects. I’m also building a small video game.

Read the record behind the work

The path here

A few stops along the way.

From the first deploy to production systems, and from engineering teams to working directly with you.

  1. Now

    Independent

    New York

    Designing and building for clients, coaching one on one, and training engineering teams on AI. On YouTube, I build my way out of everyday problems with AI. My first client project, a café brand site, is live.

  2. 2023–26

    New York

    Worked on paywalls and registration walls, with a stint on video and audio players. On the AI Champions team that rolled Claude Code out across engineering.

  3. 2021–23

    New York

    Two years on Alexa News monetization: monitoring, alerts, and reporting for news partners.

  4. 2020

    App Academy

    New York

    Twelve weeks, head-down. The first commit, the first deploy, the habit that stuck.

  5. 2012–20

    Apple and CORE

    New York

    Sales before software, in stints with gaps between: Apple Fifth Avenue 2012–14, a summer on a top-30 NYC real estate team at CORE in 2016, Apple Grand Central in 2018, then the Genius Bar 2019–20.

There’s a little more after hours.

Music, games, and side projects live in the castle.

Enter the castle

Want to talk?

Get in touch

Send a note through the contact form. I reply within one business day.