A glimpse into working in our Engineering Team (Taiwan)
This series takes a peek into what each of our team does and how they work with the other teams towards our mission of inspiring every person in the world to start selling and buying to make more possible for one another.
Passionate about programming since her elementary school days, Jenny wanted to work in a company based in Taiwan that fulfilled three criteria: i) develop a C2C product, ii) work with a global team, and iii) be part of an engineering team that has a positive culture and a vision of growing world-class. Her hobby of attending tech meet-ups led to a chance encounter that helped her find such a company. “I met Engineering Director Victor for the first time in PyConTW 2013, and he reached out in 2018 to invite me to apply for the web front-end position in Carousell’s Development Centre in Taiwan. If it weren’t for the meetups, I might not even get the chance to learn about this opportunity to work in Carousell,” shared Jenny.
As a web front-end software engineer in the General Classifieds Buyer Experience Team, Jenny works on maintaining a good buyer experience by improving features such as the home screen and search page. Jenny shares what a regular day is like for her, “the Buyer Experience Team runs the scrum meetings, so we have a daily standup every morning to share our current progress and blockers. Occasionally, we have team parties where we all gather together to test newly-developed features before rolling them out. For the rest of the time, I code and review pull requests from other web team members. I love that I can focus on product delivery most of the time.”
Jenny’s proudest project is working on the new home screen. “Regular users won’t notice the change, but we completely rebuilt the underlying structures of the home screen in the first half of the year 2020. The new structure enables dynamic home screen content that caters to more relevant user experience,” said Jenny.
While there are challenges, be it finding ways to constantly improve the web experience on both desktop and mobile, and balancing career development with raising a family, Jenny shares that they are not tough for her. “I guess this is because I had been used to working in a constantly changing environment for quite some time. Coming from that background, I am surprised to see how well structured and planned it is in Carousell for a 8-year old start-up. I feel that I’m always supported by the team and the managers, and I feel mentally safe when dealing with the challenges,” she said.
The support of her team was most memorable when she was pregnant with her second child in her first year with Carousell. Jenny said, “I am super grateful for the deep care that my team and the company have given my family and me. For example, my colleagues wrote down my hospital information just in case I went into labour during a working day. I was also extremely shocked to learn that I had a 20-week paid maternity leave.”
Jenny is one of the two female engineers in the Taiwan office, and shares her advice for girls who want to study engineering: “Don’t give up just because people say you can’t do it. Try to be in a group that would support you. If you feel intimidated attending meetups where participants are mostly male engineers, you can start with those for females. We have many such groups in Taiwan that hold female-only meetups, Women Who Code Taipei, PyLadies Taiwan to name a few. If you have the chance, I would recommend attending the Grace Hopper Celebration where you can meet, learn from, and seek advice from women in tech all around the globe.”
Be a part of our growing team. Find your ideal role here, and join us in making more possible, together.
