Chin Ming Jun
Java Jedi
1. Please tell us a bit about yourself, your current role, and your background
I am a back-end developer within the digital banking industry with SEA-YTL Consortium. Prior to my current role, I was an electrical engineer for 1 year before pursuing my interest in Software Development. Programming has always been my passion and I would pick them up during my free time. I would further grow my experience by taking in contract roles.
2. What are some of the sources or platforms that you use to learn or update your skills?
The platforms and sources that I keep up with or learn my skills are Reddit, Stack Overflow and Coursera. Reddit has a more elaborated answer while Stack Overflow provides a brief and summarised answer to my questions. Coursera, Berkeley, and Udemy gives me a more structured learning whereas Reddit and Stack Overflow allows me to have a more practical learning.
3. How do you balance quality, speed, and innovation in your work when you're faced with time constraints especially with tight deadlines?
It boils down to communication and stakeholder management, by understanding the requirements and the goals of the stakeholders. That’s where I get to draw the line of what is compromisable and omit technical points to achieve the business delivery result. However, working within the digital banking field, there are strict uncompromisable features such as data privacy, and client security. This is where developers should speak out from their perspective and balance those elements. There isn’t a golden standard when it comes to deciding which elements to prioritise, hence the best rule of thumb I live by is through understanding the end goals from the business and compare what’s important to us then make the decision.
4. What are your career goals or aspirations as a technology professional, how do you plan to achieve them?
My career goals would be somewhere in the high level field, making impact on organisation level and coaching the junior levels. I would like to grow myself into an Architect role where I phase out of the individual contributor role and make bigger impact to the organisations with a team.
5. What inspired you or drove you to pursue to pick up the (Programming Language)?
I did not began my journey with my current programming language. I started with Python coding and only moved to Java a few years back.
6. What is one advice you would give to aspiring Software Engineers of tomorrow?
When you first started, you will be in a situation where you will feel discouraged. However, keeping up with the mentality of how to get to the goal and how to achieve that goal should be something that motivates you. You should also identify that there will be different paths in life that could lead you to the goal, but it is crucial that you choose the one that wouldn’t cost your money and time. You will not be afraid of unemployment if you understand the cost and the end result.
