A Day In The Life: Maggie Diao (Software Engineer)
Graduating from Peking University, Maggie joined Kobalt as a Software Engineer in October 2017, having previously worked in a similar role for a Chinese bank. A keen runner, she’s completed both the Bejing and Berlin marathons, raising money for charity along the way. Since moving to London she’s enjoying the journey in a new city and the music industry.
I’m a back-end engineer working with the Kobalt Synch team
My role is to use various technologies to deliver different tools and features to help the business team work more efficiently. Currently, I am working on a synch tool which aims to provide a great search experience for Synch creatives, allowing them to identify (by listening) and then make judgements on which songs are suited to the marketing opportunities available.
This is my first job in London
I was working at ICBC (International Commercial Bank of China) in Beijing before joining Kobalt. Meeting so many of the Kobalt team when I interviewed gave me a great idea of the company and its values, which has really helped me during my time here.
I’m working on diverse projects
I’ve been working on a number of projects including a tool to bulk ingest music tracks from an offline source into our master data store, developing a new MP3 search feature within an existing application, and capturing data-driven user behaviour insights of MP3 searching. In the last 6 months, I have been working on Kobalt’s synch tool web service, which will provide a unique and vastly improved experience for Synch creatives to identify, listen and make creative choices. It is a really diverse project that means I get to work with a good mix of technologies like RESTful API, Dropwizard, Elasticsearch, and AWS Services.
I’m excited about technology in the music industry
Big data, machine learning and AI are all part of an evolving music industry, especially in the streaming music world. The industry is so much more complicated than people realise and technology is going to continue to play a big role as it grows.
Kobalt is growing really quickly, just like the technologies we use
I am so proud of the changes that Kobalt is bringing to the music industry and the careers of creators, and I feel really honoured to be part of a team achieving big things. We delivered the MP3 ingestion tool and our whole team continuously delivers features that help our Synch creatives make decisions quicker and more easily. By using the newest technologies, there are always opportunities to practice and share knowledge — plus, it’s exciting to have so many learning resources to use.
“Move fast & keep it simple” — My favourite Kobalt value
It helps to seize the opportunity in the fast-changing world. From the product level, to embrace the changes in marketing and technology, we need to make product discoveries quickly to ensure we’re always delivering products that users really need. Start it with a simple version, create a prototype that is as simple as possible, move fast and deliver it on time. Then adjust the features based on the feedback collected from users, which is the most efficient way. There are some user requirements that you will never figure out just by thinking, talking or brainstorming unless you see the data of how users use it.
Piano music in the background keeps me focused
I like Pop and Jazz and my favourite singers are Jay Chou, Eason Chan, both of them are Chinese singers, but when I am coding I prefer having piano music playing.
Find out more about Kobalt and how we’re changing the music industry on our website.
