Meet CTW’s Jr. Software Engineer and Developers: Randy, Bas, and Aogu
This is our series on the team working at CTW.
Today, we’ll spend some time with our junior software engineer and developers. They told us all about their journey, challenges faced, lessons learned, and what it takes to be a member of CTW tech team!
Tell us a little bit about yourself
Randy
I’m Randy from Singapore. I graduated from National University of Singapore in 2021, and majored in computer science. I have previously worked for Tencent in Singapore as a DevOps Engineer for about a year. Other than that, I also did some internships in a company and government agency as well.
The reason why I choose this field is because the career prospects in this field are good, especially in this day and age. Other than that, I always wanted to live abroad to broaden my perspective.
Bas
My name is Chaiyatad but everyone here calls me Bas, I am from Thailand. I graduated from Chulalongkorn University in Thailand last year, with a major in computer engineering. Even though I graduated quite recently, I have experience working full time as a software engineer for about a year, which is similar to what I am doing now at CTW.
Similarly to Randy, I think the career prospects in this field are good. Also, I studied some Japanese before coming here. So, my goal right now, other than working in Japan, is learning more about the language.
Aogu
I’m Aogu, which can be pronounced like “All good”, from Japan. My background is a little bit different. After high school, I worked as a train station employee in Japan. After a while, I quit and decided to go to university.?
I wanted to go abroad to study, and when deciding my studies I tried to think of some realistic field, maybe to either become an Accountant or Software Engineer. After learning programming, I realized I was really into it. Then, I decided to study computer science at a university in Australia.
During my study, I also did some remote part-time work at a Japanese company as a software engineer. However, I was looking for a more interesting opportunity to further expand my skills. So, during summer break last year, I decided to apply at CTW. I started working here as an intern, then finally became a full time employee just recently. Even though I work full time now, I am still able to continue my studies. I decided to transfer, and am currently enrolled in an online bachelor's program in a university based in London.
What is your current role?
Randy
My role here is DevOps Engineer. For the DevOps team, we usually handle a lot of operations requests. For example, if the developers require some new tools or resources, they will come to us and we will provide them. So there is a lot of communication with the developers as we have to figure out what their pain points are and how we can make them better.
Other than working on operations requests, we are also looking and maintaining the existing systems and how we can improve them. Basically the DevOps role is to make the Devs life easier! We are trying to automate processes, optimize it, make things faster, so the developers can focus solely on writing codes.
I have worked on a project, in which I had to do upgrades and migrations of our kubernetes clusterーthe underlying infrastructure of all our applications. This operation is quite challenging as it affected the entire tech team. As a junior, I got to learn a lot being tasked on these kinds of projects. I also wrote the manuals based on my learnings, and I am confident I will be able to carry it out smoothly if we had to do similar operations in the future.
Bas & Aogu
My position here is Backend Engineer and Aogu is Frontend Developer. For us junior members of the software development team, usually we will receive project requirements from the Product Manager. Then, we will follow the requirements of that project. Sometimes, we also have to decide how the behavior should be, then implement that to satisfy the requirements. If, for example, we are not sure how we should handle any of the requirements, we will communicate them with the DevOps team.
The product manager will do the main communication by gathering the requirements from all stakeholders such as the game operations team and the game publisher. However, for senior software developers, they sometimes have to speak with the stakeholders to gather the requirements as well.?
For us, as junior developers, we contribute to the development of our game management tool to manage all the games in our G123 platform. We are trying to improve the previous tools by unifying them to our platform. We think it will be even more compatible with the game operations team in the future, as they will be able to manage all of the games with only one tool.
What surprised you about working here?
Randy
I have previously worked for a big company with more manpower, so working in a start-up is really different. The pace is really fast, you get to start working immediately. I would say that in terms of experience, I feel like I did a lot more in my first 2 months here compared to working for an entire year in my previous company. One very good thing about CTW, our senior engineers here are very knowledgeable and experienced. When you don’t understand something, they are also always ready to help.
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Bas
Yes, I agree. I also think that everything moves really fast here, which is really different from my previous experiences! Another thing is, because the team is very diverseーChinese, English, and Japanese are spoken on a daily basisーsometimes we have some language barriers. However, if during the meeting there is something that we don’t understand, they will try to explain it more carefully in a way that we can understand better.
Aogu
I think we all can agree that the pace is fast here. Due to this startup environment, as junior developers, we also have more responsibilities. I think it is a really good opportunity to learn and improve yourself. As already mentioned before, the senior engineers here are willing to help and give proper guidance, and not just instructions on how to solve a problem.
What kind of skills does an engineer or developer need to have at CTW?
Randy
In terms of this company specifically, it's really important for you to be proactive, at least in the DevOps team. Your tasks are not just assigned to you. So, you have to actively seek out things to improve. In addition, as the technology we use in this company changes very fast, we are also looking for a fast-learner that can adapt to new technology.
Bas
I think CTW’s environment values someone who is collaborative or easy to work with, rather than a genius that knows everything. As we work together as a team, we need to always collaborate and interact with each other on various tasks and projects. Of course, being knowledgeable is really good, but it's not the only skill that we look for in a team.
Aogu
Yes! I think communication skills are really important. Because our team is diverse, we must communicate effectively and work together even if there are some language barriers. Also, we are hoping to find someone that is really passionate about this field. Especially, if they are someone that also keeps up with the trends of cutting-edge technology.
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For more information about our available positions, have a look below.?
We’re actively looking for talent in the following roles.
Product Manager
Site Reliability Engineer (SRE)
Site Reliability Engineer (SRE) - JPN
DevOps Engineer
DevOps Engineer - JPN