I grew up in Huachinango, Puebla, as a little boy with big questions and no clear path for where technology, design, or college could take me. That journey carried me from Mexico to Miami and eventually to Boston, where I became a QuestBridge Scholar and now study Computer Engineering at Boston University.
Today, I’m a Creative Design Intern at Todd and a fellow at OpenTrade (YC S26).
I’m a first-generation, low-income builder who lives at the intersection of product design, UI/UX, front-end engineering, design engineering, and growth.
I’ve shipped production React/TypeScript work at State Farm, helped build an AI learning platform as a founding engineer at Sapling, and co-founded From Campus to Career, a bilingual platform helping first-gen students find opportunities. I’ve also built neural-symbolic AI through Break Through Tech AI with MIT Lincoln Laboratory and researched soft robotics, electronics, and hardware at BU.
Outside of internships and classes, I create. I’ve grown a community of 25K+ across LinkedIn and Instagram by sharing opportunities, honest career lessons, and the things I wish someone had explained to me sooner. I’ve supported 5000+ students through conversations and resources, and I started the Cruzing Forward Scholarship because I know how much one opportunity can change a life.
I also serve as an Adobe Student Ambassador, ColorStack Fellow, and VP of External Affairs for SHPE at BU. The mission is the same: make complex systems easier to understand and make opportunity easier to reach.
I love creative writing, visual design, chess, table tennis, baking, painting, K-dramas, Haikyu, riverside walks, and Snoopy. I’m bilingual in English and Spanish, and I carry Huachinango, Miami, and Boston with me into everything I make.
I’m still becoming, still building, and telling stories. Stories are for those late hours in the night when you can't remember how you got from where you were to where you are. Stories are for eternity, when memory is erased, when there is nothing to remember except the story.
Always happy to connect with people who build with heart.
- Email — josec@bu.edu
- Substack — @jcpuffybear
- Instagram — @jobse.cz
- GitHub — Jose-Gael-Cruz-Lopez
- Calendly — Book a chat
After countless coffee chats and messages, this page is my way to help everyone I can. Feel free to book a time above — I'd love to connect!
Four open-source projects that exist for one reason: the best opportunities don't live on job boards. They live in insider networks and word of mouth. These make them public.
Internships, programs, and resources for freshmen and sophomores. Plenty of companies run early-career programs that need no prior experience — this is the curated list of them, in one place.
Your HQ for every hackathon worth joining — a community-driven list of open and upcoming hackathons, updated automatically. Live at hacking-hq.com.
Conferences undergrads can actually attend: free, scholarship-funded, or student-priced — across every major, not just tech.
The bilingual opportunity platform I co-founded for first-generation students. Live at fromcampuscareer.com.