Experiences

Emma is a subscription-based service that integrates with high-street banks like HSBC and Barclays. The app provides personal finance management features such as transaction tracking, monthly budget setup, and categorizing transactions by type. During my two-month tenure at Emma, I contributed to several impactful projects despite the short timeframe. My responsibilities included adding new bank integrations to enhance user access, optimizing the performance of banking connections, and cloning the registration flow from the mobile app to the website. One notable project I worked on was implementing a customized QR code generator for a marketing campaign page. This feature allowed Emma to connect with marketing partners and track performance metrics effectively. Once completed, it was deployed to production and immediately created business value. The work culture at Emma emphasized individual contributions, with minimal collaboration outside of weekly Monday meetings with the CEO to review progress and align on priorities. I decided to leave Emma after two months due to the demanding and costly daily commute to London, which felt unnecessary given the largely independent work style outside of the weekly meeting.

I worked on a game development partner-facing platform at PlayStation. My primary focus was on the frontend of an access management system. This system allowed partners to create groups of existing users, and partner admins could assign roles to these groups. Other systems could then use the permissions associated with user roles to determine whether specific operations were permitted. However, I did not develop the API for external system integration. My role involved integrating the frontend with the API to support functionalities such as registering users to groups and adding permissions to teams. In addition to working on the frontend system features, I also maintained the component library by adding features and fixing bugs. I conducted experiments with SaaS tools to evaluate feature flag services and introduced new methods for micro frontend architecture. The work environment at PlayStation primarily followed a waterfall approach to project management, aiming to complete features for all users before releasing them. Although I believed a feature flag-based approach to roll out features incrementally could have been more effective, I had no influence over the release process. Apart from this, I found the work environment to be relaxed and straightforward. PlayStation's two-week sprint structure allowed for Fridays dedicated to research and learning. I used this time for proof of concept work, refactoring, and stack migrations. Most of my feature tasks involved integrating existing APIs or adding new components to the library. I decided to leave PlayStation because the development cycle didn't align with my preferred workflow, and I was the only fully remote member of the team. While my teammates worked in a hybrid setup and conducted in-person planning sessions, I remained remote, which made communication more challenging.

Neat was a Hong Kong-based company that provided virtual account services for small business owners. With a virtual account, business owners could access features such as spending analysis and a dedicated bank account for managing their operations. I was part of a small team responsible for developing the registration system. My contributions included implementing translation functionality to make the platform accessible in Chinese, establishing testing processes, and providing technical support for less experienced team members. The working culture at Neat was fast-paced and demanding, but the structured planning process reduced stress. Every two weeks, the team reviewed the backlog and set sprint goals for the upcoming cycle. Thanks to the product owner’s efforts, this process ran smoothly. At the end of each sprint, we held demos to showcase progress on business features, and one day was allocated for engineering housekeeping tasks. I decided to leave Neat after relocating to the UK, as my role transitioned from hybrid to fully remote. The eight-hour time difference between Hong Kong and the UK made it difficult to stay engaged with the team. Seeking a fresh start in the UK, I began looking for new opportunities more aligned with my location and preferences.

HK01 is an online media company that produces news and other content for the public. As part of the development team, I contributed to building internal systems for content editors and journalists. My key projects included developing a messaging system from scratch, enabling editors to send messages to end users through various channels such as SMS, in-app messages, app notifications, and web notifications. I also implemented an internal login system using the OAuth 2 protocol, which allowed single sign-on across multiple components. This system included role-based permissions so that admins could control access levels for different users. The working culture at HK01 was one of the highlights of my experience. I worked in a self-managed, cross-functional team led by an accountable and supportive team leader. The team leader handled communication with the product owner and facilitated backlog refinement sessions where we broke down features into smaller, executable tasks. We estimated story points to evaluate task complexity and collaboratively decided on feature rollouts. This environment taught me how to be a self-managed engineer and an effective team player. I left HK01 to migrate from Hong Kong to the United Kingdom. Unfortunately, HK01 did not offer relocation options, which led me to pursue new opportunities.