Meet Allison Chiang (she/her), a Software Engineer at Microsoft and the Co-President of nwPlus in 2020–2021.
As nwPlus approaches nearly a decade of organizing hackathons, we thought it was time to check in with some of our alumni who were so crucial to bringing to life the hackathons we know and love in a “Where are they now?” retrospective. In the first installment of our Alumni Spotlights series, we caught up with former Co-President Allison Chiang, who now works at Microsoft Vancouver as a full-time Software Engineer.
Note: Responses have been edited for length and clarity.
Name: Allison Chiang (she/her)
Role: Software Engineer at Microsoft
Previous Roles in nwPlus: Co-President, LHD (HackCamp) Director (prev. Logistics Coordinator), Content Writer
You’ve had some incredible internship experiences in university, with roles at Meta and Microsoft among others. Could you reflect on your career trajectory?
In my third year, while studying as a Combined Major in Science, I decided to take a chance and enroll in the UBC Co-Op program and ended up doing an 8-month term at a local software company as a full stack software engineer. Next, I interned at Facebook as a Front End Engineer, working remotely in Vancouver with a team based in Menlo Park, California. I then worked for both Taplytics and Microsoft as a Software Engineer Intern. Finally, I went back to Facebook, which had rebranded to Meta, for my last internship, and graduated from UBC with a degree in Computer Science. And now, I’m a full-fledged Software Engineer at Microsoft in Vancouver.
What is one piece of advice you have for university students who are looking for internships at a “FAANG“?
My one piece of advice is to focus on making yourself a really well-rounded individual. Being in tech, D&I initiatives have a huge role in the industry as companies build tools for everyone across the globe— for people of different races, with different experiences.
By developing an open worldview and being open to new experiences, you’re going to be contributing to these really great initiatives to build tools for people around the world.
Venture out and attend developer events — learn more about what is newest in technology and what is currently going on in the industry. Try to figure out the challenges that different companies are trying to create solutions for. Reflect on your experiences as a student, as you might have these diverse experiences that can apply to the problems that people are trying to solve — how can you make yourself part of the solution? And lastly, be sure to put yourself out there by talking to people in the industry and mentors who are willing to guide you.
Could you describe what a typical day in your life looks like as a software engineer at Microsoft?
First thing in the morning, I usually get my blood pumping by going to an exercise class or taking my dogs out on a walk, then I take the Canada Line to the office. My first meeting of the day is a sync-up meeting (or standup), a 30 min debrief with my team where we share blockers and updates. I might have more meetings throughout the day, e.g. sprint planning — 2 week long chunks of time where we aim to finish tasks, or retrospectives reflecting on what went well, what could be improved, and action items that we can take as a team to collaborate better.
As I’m part of the Azure Communication Services team, I also work with a bunch of other teams that build the infrastructure for different services at Microsoft. Thus, I have lots of cross-team meetings and meetings with other developers. It’s not all just about writing code — collaborating with different individuals is crucial to the development process. The rest of my day is focus time for my development work — working on software developer kits (SDKs) or APIs and coding new features and fixing bugs.
What is your favourite memory from your time at nwPlus?
My favourite memory at nwPlus was at nwHacks, in person during one of the pre-Covid years. In the middle of the night, no one was talking, it was dead silent in the hall and the only thing you could see were the blue lights from the monitors and keyboards from people tapping away at their projects. It was cold, dark, and silent, and I remember myself and some other coordinators taking a little dolly with our snacks from Costco, and just piling it all onto the dolly and pushing it down the halls, hyping people up.
We loved seeing all of these hackers (who were exhausted) but so passionate about the project they were doing and the problem they were trying to solve in society.
You were co-president of nwPlus in 2020–2021. What do you think was the biggest lesson or skill you learned from that experience?
The biggest lesson I learned was to be flexible. At the time, we didn’t know what kind of challenges were coming our way. We thought we would continue being complacent and continue our events as we did in previous years, but COVID really threw us for a loop.
The biggest lesson that we learned together as an entire team was to roll with the punches, to pivot, and to be as resourceful as we could.
Moving online, we had to narrow down what was the “core” experience for hackers and what created the most value for them. How do we take the reasons why our hackers and sponsors put so much trust in us — and translate that into something that would still be rewarding and fulfilling over the internet on whatever platform we decided to use?
As everyone was learning how to roll with the punches, I think overall it created a very resilient team. We still continued to bond regardless of the lack of face-to-face interaction, we stood by each other in the face of adversity and challenges and tried to make sure everyone felt included and heard in discussions and decisions. It’s continued to benefit me to this day — I’ve been using all of these skills in my day-to-day role working hybrid. I hope it’s something that would apply to you and the skills you need to succeed as well.
What role did hackathons play in your career journey?
A soft skill I learned during my time at hackathons that sticks with me today is public speaking. I think that’s such an important skill for someone in society in general. As a hacker, I had to present my ideas to the judges. It’s strange there because there’s a little bit of a power dynamic shift. They’re there to judge you, and so it’s quite terrifying to be communicating with these judges who have so much experience in industry and are really incredible mentors in the community.
Presenting my ideas to them in a way that was concise and that fit in the 2-minute limit, being able to justify the decisions we made and the drawbacks that we had, and all of those ideas that we worked on together as a team — those skills in the demo section really carry forward into my presentations as a student and into my demos as a software engineer. When working in a team, it’s important to make my voice heard and it’s a really important skill that I didn’t have before hackathons and that I had to work really hard on.
As a POC, it is sometimes scary to make your voice heard — and I’m not sure if everyone shares that kind of experience with me — but that was definitely my experience, especially being in a male-dominated industry (and as a student, a male-dominated major).
So that’s something that hackathons really helped me with in terms of my career.
What is another question you wish I had asked you and how would you have answered?
So the question that I wish you would’ve asked me is, “How do students not in STEM fields benefit from hackathons?”.
I would say that hackathons are a celebration of ideation, creativity, and of including people from different walks of life and backgrounds.
There is value in someone who has pursued something that is not in STEM and there are still problems in all these different disciplines that could be solved with the intersectionality of their experiences. I think we should definitely make it known that hackathons are built for everyone, whether you’re in tech or not, it is something that everyone can benefit from.
Speaking from experience, I was terrified of being at a hackathon; I was in biology and chemistry — I had no business being at a hackathon, but I took that leap of faith and I think a lot of others should as well. There are so many different fields that benefit so much from tech (and vice versa). I really look forward to the next generation of hackers and all those different experiences that they’ll be able to bring to the table.
Could you describe your experience at nwPlus in just three words or phrases?
The three words would be adapt, overcome, and share. They still apply to my day-to-day work as well — here’s how.
- Adapting to new environments, projects, and problems that I have to tackle.
- Overcoming problems with the help of my manager, mentors, other people on the team that are more knowledgeable, Wikipedia docs, Stack Overflow — being resourceful.
- Sharing — by using my public speaking skills that I learned from demoing at hackathons and sharing with my team.
At nwPlus, my experience most of the time was practicing how to adapt, overcome, and share all of these experiences with others. It’s a really important skill set to have and I hope you can apply that to your own learning as well.
Where can everyone learn more about what you’re working on or connect with you online?
I’d love to speak with everyone professionally on LinkedIn — if you send me a connection request, make sure to send a message as well telling me where you heard about me from so I can have a coffee chat with you or learn more about you.
@allison.chiang on Instagram.
Stay tuned for our next installment in this four-part series, coming next Wednesday, August 23, 2023! Check out our Instagram and TikTok @nwplusubc for a short-form video format of this interview!
This article was written by Jennifer Shui and Victoria Lim.
