Zifan Jiang

Live in Zurich; used to live in Shanghai, Beijing, and Nanjing; born in Kunshan, China.

A researcher, an engineer, a backpacker, a gamer.

Four cultures shape the adult me, and here are some basic facts:

I fell in love with game consoles and PC when I was a kid. My best summer memories are about Warcraft, Counter-Strike, A/C, and watermelons in our lovely little town.
My first dream was to become a professional esports player like 4K^Grubby.
My next dream to make a game drove me to university and software engineering.
I did not learn much about game development and software engineering in my undergraduate studies, but an excellent liberal arts and humanities education, which shaped my taste and worldview. I met my wife and best friends in life there.
I started the hobby for backpacking in Tibet and reading thousands of books.
I learned how to code properly through a series of internships and part-time jobs.
I was trained to be a top software engineer in my first full-time job, Zhihu, which was a thriving startup full of hacker spirit and the most genius people in Beijing and China.
Zhihu's early slogan was to "discover a bigger world"; I left it to find a bigger world.
I landed in Zurich for my master's, then Covid hit, which fulfilled my idea to try living once in seclusion. I kept reading and hiked a lot in the mountains.
The interests in philosophy and linguistics led me to pursue a Ph.D. in Computational Linguistics, where my engineering skills developed over years turned out to be useful.
I wanted to tackle automatic sign language translation, which is a challenging and meaningful problem. I like challenging and meaningful problems:
- I studied machine translation with Professor Rico Sennrich.
- I studied sign language with Professor Sarah Ebling.
- I studied computer vision with Professor Andrew Zisserman.
- I collaborate with researchers all over the world; they are the treasures I have.
- These experiences have prepared me for being a scientist at Google DeepMind.
I travelled every corner of Europe during my Ph.D. The Alps and the Mediterranean are my favorite places, so many cherished memories.
I am very excited about the future. See you anywhere on the earth.

Experiences

Google DeepMind Zurich · Student Researcher · 2025-2026
University of Oxford · Visiting Researcher · 2024-2025
- Visiting the VGG Group hosted by Professor Andrew Zisserman
University of Zurich · Ph.D. in Computational Linguistics · 2022-2026
- Dissertation: Fundamentals of Sign Language Processing
- Advised by Prof. Dr. Sarah Ebling and Prof. Dr. Rico Sennrich
University of Neuchâtel · Scientific Programmer · 2021-2024
- SNSF project Evolution of Phonetics and Phonology
University of Zurich · Master in Data Science · 2019-2021
- Special student at ETH Zurich
- Thesis: Machine Translation between Spoken and Sign Languages in Written Form
Wiredcraft (Shanghai) · Front-end Engineer · 2018-2019
- Lead maintainer of Starbucks China website and World Bank Open Data platform.
- Analyst on-site at Nike Shanghai on Nike Wechat Mini Program.
Gap (Nanjing) · 2017-2018
- A librarian, reading useless books in university libraries.
- Freelancing for startups, playing with rich-text editors.
Zhihu (Beijing) · Front-end Engineer / Front-end Intern · 2014-2017
- Built the first version of the Zhihu advertising platform.
- Explored the early React ecosystem, redesign and refactor the official website.
- In charge of an internal UI kit, especially a rich-text component based on Draft.js.
MyDocumate (Nanjing) · Front-end Intern · 2014
Alibaba (Hangzhou) · Front-end Intern · 2013
Nanjing University Lily Studio · Art Group Leader / Art Group Member · 2011-2013
Nanjing University· Bachelor in Software Engineering · 2011-2015

Skills

Languages: Mandarin Chinese (native), Wu Chinese (native), English (C1), German (B1), American Sign Language (A2)
Programming Languages: JavaScript, Python, Java, C/C++, LaTeX
Tools: Macbook Pro, Chrome, iTerm, VS Code, Git/GitHub
Specialties: Natural Language Processing, Computer Vison, Data Science

Trips

I have travelled to many places since I started backpacking in 19. I wrote about and linked my favourite destinations such as Tibet and Turkey, and some other good memories are presented in my wife's Instagram stories. I actually liked all the trips because otherwise I would not have kept going here and there. Wish to write them all.

- North America (road trip)

2024: Miami and the Key West

- Europe (road trip)

2025: England, Wales, Iceland, Luxembourg, Alsace-Lorraine
2024: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Albania, Greece (Corfu), Italy (Matera, East Coast)
2023: Montenegro, Greece (Crete, Meteora, Thessaloniki)
2022: Spain & Portugal (Iberian Peninsula), South Italy (Sicily), Spain (the Pyrenees, the Basque Country)
2021: Northern and Central Italy (West Coast), Southern France
2020: Austria, Hungary, Czech Republic, Germany, Greece (Athens, Peloponnese)
2019: Switzerland (the Alps), Netherlands, Belgium
2017: Turkey (West Coast, Cappadocia)

- (South) East Asia (backpacking)

2023: Singapore
2018: Phuket Island, Jeju Island, Myanmar
2016: Sri Lanka, Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture

- China (backpacking, hitchhiking)

2015: Chongqing to Tibet (via G317, G318, G219 until Mount Kailash, Zanda County)
2014: Gansu (Qilian Mountains), Qinghai (Qinghai Lake), Hulunbuir, Guangxi
2013: Jiangxi, Sichuan (G318), Northeast China (Heilongjiang, Liaoning, Jilin)
2012: Tibet (Mount Everest), Dunhuang & Jiayuguan City (the Silk Road)

Favourites

Philosophers: Friedrich Nietzsche, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Zhuangzi
Writers: Milan Kundera, W. Somerset Maugham, Orhan Pamuk, John Wiliams, Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, Haruki Murakami, Mu Xin
Games: Dota2, Braid, Civilization, Assassin's Creed Odyssey
Sports: hiking, cycling, swimming, skiing, football, basketball
Club: Chelsea F.C.

Posts

Quotes

"What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence." ― Ludwig Wittgenstein
"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." ― The Great Gatsby
"Know thyself." - Temple of Apollo at Delphi
(to be added ...)