Conexus → UNCHAIN
Joining an AI startup as an early member
Overview
I was an early member of the AI startup UNCHAIN (formerly Conexus), joining back in its predecessor days. Working at the boundary between hardware and AI, the territory now called Physical AI, I handled the specification and prototyping of AI-driven robots and the negotiations with the mainland-China engineers responsible for development and production.
How I joined
Most AI startups are complete as software alone. But the moment you try to deliver AI into people’s hands as a physical device, you suddenly need someone who can see across circuits, mechanisms, wireless, and manufacturability all at once. Conexus brought me in precisely to fill that gap, and my end-to-end experience from robotics competitions to business development was exactly what was needed.
What I worked on
In the robot development, I documented the hardware requirement specifications and went through repeated rounds of coordination with the mainland-China engineers in charge of development and production. The documents mixed English and Chinese. Beyond that, I was involved in the study and evaluation of elements such as communication methods and localization, prototyping of conversation features incorporating generative AI, and development related to image recognition.
A portrait from my time at the company“Here is what we want the AI to do” from the planning side does not become a product on its own. Which components to use, what circuit to build, at what unit cost to mass-produce. Only when someone translates the abstract request into a concrete design does AI make its appearance in the physical world. That translation was the work I found most interesting.
Looking back
UNCHAIN has since raised funding and continued to grow. Being involved as an early member in the formative period, while the shape of the product was still being settled, gave me the conviction that my skills hold up outside my own company. The knack for converting requests into specifications, and the ways of developing with overseas engineers, both learned there, carry straight into my own work today.