Career Chats: Crystal Hsieh

You've probably heard the phrase "a career path is never a straight line". It can be scary to not know what you want to do, or know what you want but not how to get there. Career Chats is a series aimed towards tackling these uncertainties. The series highlights women in different roles across LinkedIn and the unique journey that led them to where they are today. We hope these stories will help you find your own path to your dreams.

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Career Chats with?Crystal Hsieh

Role:?Senior Software Engineer, Messenger Team

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Q: Walk us through your career path so far.

As a kid, I was really interested in making my own movies - I especially loved telling stories through digital animation and video editing. When I was in middle school, I was able to take video tech and web design classes, where I learned that I loved to solve practical problems with creative solutions. My early passion for technology translated into my choice to major in computer science at UCLA. During my college summers, I interned for Google Ads in NYC, Google Now in MTV, and Google Flights in Zurich, Switzerland. I was able to understand how I could apply my skills to work in industry and design solutions for real world problems, and I learned a lot from different mentors in each team. Once I graduated, I joined the newly formed LinkedIn Groups team, where I was able to help design and rebuild the entire Groups experience from scratch. It was a great experience forming a team’s culture from the ground up and witnessing our project transform from an MVP design to a full-feature product. In 2020, I joined the Messenger team to work on Message Requests and lead the development and launch of 1:1 video conferencing on LI Messenger. I now continue to work on LI Messenger to focus on growth initiatives.

Q: What do you enjoy most about your role?

The food, of course! Just kidding - I do love the food, but I’ve also enjoyed working with talented people to build extensible solutions to difficult problems. I’ve learned so much through the technical and career guidance from different LinkedIn engineers, and it’s amazing to see a project go from a planned design, to a Gantt chart, to a launched product!

Q: What is the best advice you have gotten so far in your career?

Don’t be afraid to voice your opinion - including making recommendations or decisions. When I first started out, I often deferred to others to make design or tactical choices – since I often thought “others would know better” or “I didn’t want to be wrong”. Oftentimes, if you’re working closely with a project, you have domain knowledge that is valuable to your team. Even if your recommendation isn’t always chosen, you can learn from how other designs are evaluated and finalized.

Q: Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

Whether diving into management or continuing my role as an IC, I see myself excited about the next big challenge I will be tackling. I see myself more calm and confident due to past experiences, and expanding my influence by mentoring other engineers to become strong leaders. I also see myself finding a way to stay involved with student outreach through teaching - either by working with local schools or building my own program to introduce more women to tech-related fields.

Q: What is something that is not on your LinkedIn Profile?

Outside of work, I enjoy teaching coding to students! In the past two years, I’ve assisted teaching AP Computer Science at a local high school with my fellow LinkedIn teammate Amy Liu. I also used to run week-long coding camps for middle school girls. Beyond teaching, I enjoy traveling to new places, trying new recipes, hosting hot-pot hangouts with my friends (pre-Covid), and deep-frying fresh potato chips with my family.

Want to see more posts like this? Check out our past Career Chats HERE