A Thank You Note to Celebrate My 1 Year with LinkAja

Last Saturday (May 2nd, 2020) was exactly 1 year later from my first day at LinkAja. We only had around 30 engineers back then and I was required to take part in scaling the engineering team. If I reflect back, I honestly couldn’t remember how I survived attending ~100% engineer interviews while need to also catch up with engineering projects. I recalled there was a week where I had 14 interviews in 5 days.

Later on, after fully placed under DevOps Group, assigned to work with a leader who is seasoned in that field, a lot of times I was worried if I’m not smart enough or not catch up fast enough. Plus I used to think that DevOps is something very complex, there’s no way I could really get it. Lucky though, despite how much I required to catch up technically, instead of limiting my responsibility, or underestimated me, he gave me trust, helped me in hiring to cover several skill sets my team would need, and the most important thing, he hired and built the DevOps team with supportive culture & environment. No matter how small/basic my difficulties, everyone will allocate their time to help and this vibe enable me not only to pick up new skills but also make it very easy to always be extra miles in help each other.

During the process, I finally understand that DevOps is something really beautiful, focus on harmony in all aspects (people, process, tools) and a way for us to vouch for our software quality and reliability to customers.

Back then in Test & QA team, I was only with 3 super testers (cause they always do more than expected) coverage responsibility specific for Mobile Apps (functionality). Now, we cover so much bigger area and grow into 17 members covering QA Analysts, Software Engineer in Tests & Performance Testers, very soon Release Managers as well.

Am thankful to have team members who are very understanding on many limitations and challenges that we had but still striving to get the job done. We went through sleepless nights, timeline demanding project, and various types of challenges. Once, when I was still working at an International Bank, I had a mentor who taught me that people will not understand you thank them if you don't say it. Also, a proper thank you needs to be genuine and specific, so at early year, even though I don’t celebrate Valentine, tried to use the moment to say Thank you, writing everyone in my team member (no custom messages, all specific and different for each of them).

Touched to read all the responses after that, I got a surprise gift from the team consist everything I love (Sushi, cause I'm not into sweet chocolates, Aromatherapy, Cokes, etc) and some wrote honored being part of my team (while actually the honor is mine), some wrote they never received those kind treatment before, pray so I will be always healthy etc.

From leading 3 into leading 17, From only 30 Engineers into more than 110, From covering 1 specific Interface into serving testing activities multiple platforms, projects & Developments. More, becoming gatekeeper of deployment and release activities.

Beyond the happiness that we scale so fast there is also an understanding that we must bear, scale is also rigorous process & come with discomfort or extreme changes, but this is the process we must gone through in order to Win any battle (whether with competitors, or simply to outgrow ourselves). Scalability is not only critical in technology context but how we scale the people capacity and trust me it requires lots of energy (physically & mentally).

So I’d like to take this moment to thank people who brought me here back then cause I got chances to learn a lot and have precious journey.

• Mbak Erin Dwi Rejeki, thank you for initiated the phone call to talk me into LinkAja even though at the beginning we talked to prepare meet up events, too bad you're no longer here when I was onboard.
• Mas Danu Wicaksana, thank you for having the talk to me at Starbucks back then so I could consider join LinkAja among other options. Truly learnt a lot from you and grateful had a chance to work with such humble leader and somebody who emphasize we must leverage people based on their strength while at the same time very care about my career aspiration. If you never connected me with pak Arman & tech team I don't think I'll be here right now. (So sad you're no longer here)
• Pak Arman Hazairin, thank you for trust, invest in hiring me and also teach a lot of things from stress handling (through running which I sometime obey haha), until limit my rice consumption. Just by sitting 1 m from you, I learn a lot, especially to always be ready to answer any kind of questions (or....rush to find the answers before 2nd questions pop up) haha
• Mbak Anissa Hapsari, thank you for interviewed me as well back then, include helping me a lot to catch up when I freshly onboard, always allocate time to have lunch and talk about the team, or just random casual personal talk.

And of course to my critical moral support after I joined LinkAja

• Mas Lumban Sopian, 2nd paragraph refers to you, so I don't have to explain more how grateful I am (^^)
• My whole team members : Dimas, Refqi, Misik, Lela, Shalsa, Satria, Tomy, Reval, Fazri, Abel, Ricco, Sisca, Richard, Helmon, Aziz + welcoming Dedi & Alysha

It has been a wonderful, priceless journey and am still having it!

#gratitude #appreciation #linkaja #technology #devops #organization #scale