100 Days Later: Joining Temasek’s Digital Tech Team
If you’re reading this, you’re probably curious about what it means to be part of Temasek, what we do here in the Digital Technology team, or even how we’ve adjusted our hiring and onboarding processes in light of COVID-19. So this is where I come in to share my journey as one of the new joiners of this amazing team!
Baby Steps: The Interview
One phrase: Pecha Kucha. Every unique team has its own idiosyncrasies — and this is one of ours, and through this, we want to hear about your own quirks! 20 images, 20 seconds — what is the story that you want to tell?
Of course, from a pragmatic point of view, the point of these Pecha Kuchas is for us to find out more about you — not just as a potential member of the organisation, but a potential team member, a potential friend, a potential game-changer. We want to hear about what are the cool things you’ve done — and the ‘uncool’ ones. In fact, my Pecha Kucha started off with sharing about my failed first aid beginnings, attested by the two permanent scars on my knees (I’ll spare you the gory bits) — and this was right during the interview panel’s lunchtime, so I’m sure they must have found it… memorable (ha — sorry guys).
But more importantly, the Pecha Kucha is a chance for you to take a step back and reflect upon your journey — not just professionally but personally too. It’s a glimpse into your story, and most of us will have chapters upon chapters of great stories to tell, but which chapters to dive into, and how best to tell these stories — that’s entirely up to you! Tip: it’s not about bragging rights here — don’t tell us 20 different stories on 20 different slides. Pick the best chapters and dive into them.
More importantly, enjoy the creation, storyboarding and eventual storytelling of the Pecha Kuchas! After all, it’s your story, so don’t think of it as an ‘interview resume’ — it’s a verbose/pictorial performance of your stories :)
There are typically two / three rounds of interviews and discussions that will happen, and the duration between these interviews do vary. We want to get the right interviewers onboard for the appropriate skillsets, so don’t be too hasty — we’re making sure you have the right audience for your ‘audition’!
“That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for… me”: The Onboarding
There was a period of time on LinkedIn where the most commonly-used word was: the new normal — used to describe the supposed new normalcy of life during COVID. As my Day 1 of work happened in the middle of Phase II of Singapore’s reopening, the office was still operating on a work-from-home policy, with the exception of those who were deemed necessary for on-site work (albeit in the small minority). It was a strange experience of a virtual onboarding, with the only in-person experience being that of work device collection and setting up of various accounts.
But hey, what’s being part of the digital team without a digital experience? My first few days being part of the team coincided with meeting the rest of the digital technology team virtually (next tip: Macbook webcams are way sharper than that of your typical Windows laptop), attending the various onboarding sessions organised by our Organisation & People team and of course, our very own TCSS sessions!
Oh, and we have a ‘first-click’ competition to check-in on our status at 9:30AM each morning. 3 months into the ritual, nobody knows what’s the prize — but what we do know is anyone with consecutive days of placing first = definitely a bot!
Being part of the digital technology team — or any team within Temasek, for that matter, requires plenty of interaction with the rest of the organisation. You will be paired with a buddy (someone who is of similar years of experience but from a different team), undergo various onboarding initiatives (virtual get-togethers) and get exposed to different parts of the business. We’re looking for people who aren’t only good at what they do, but also understands the business and the work we do as an organisation — so that’s important!
“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” Peter Drucker
When you join the Digital Technology team, it’s clear early on that this is a melting pot of talented individuals, each with their own quirks and skillsets. I’ve found my fellow Yakun buddies, Liverpool supporters — although I’m alone in my fervent opposition towards beansprouts (which my team has helpfully suggested to be part of any future care packages to be sent to me).
But that’s exactly the culture of this team: we’re made up of fun-loving, yet hardworking individuals with different mindsets, skillsets and personalities — and that’s perfectly okay! The best team isn’t one that is forced into the same shape mold, but one that amplifies the best of ourselves.
A Macbook, a Bluetooth Headset + a Cup of Coffee: 90 Days
3 months in, I typically start my day by powering up my Macbook that’s hooked up onto a monitor arm, put on my bluetooth headset / earpiece (depending on how in the zone I need to be), and coffee — and enter my first meeting or task.
“But wait… what exactly do you do?” — you by this point in the article.
I’m a Product Manager — which means my core focus is on delivering the right products to our users, with a core focus on empowering our users in utilising digital solutions in automating repetitive, manual tasks, in utilising data-driven tools to arrive at prescriptive decision-making and in ensuring value derived from the adopting of technology within the organisation. How can we optimise certain processes so that our people focus on truly high-value tasks? How can we utilise data to understand more about the companies we’re looking at as a tool for evaluation? How do we keep up with the transformative nature of businesses to ensure we are always kept up to speed and ahead of the curve?
One such initiative is detailed by my fellow crewmate Sharlene in her story on building a ML product in Temasek! And also another from Pier on his learnings from working on various enterprise ML projects!
And remember my point earlier on amplifying the best of ourselves? The thing is: not one Product Manager is alike here. Some of us are highly technical — so we get hands-on on development of AI/ML tools. Some of us are very into UX — so we’re obsessed with our users (hey, we even have a UX lab)! Some of us have program delivery background — so we double-hat as scrum masters within our respective programs.
As a Product Manager, one will get to work together with the users to define the product vision, understanding the current gaps and ideating over possible solutions through design thinking workshops. True to our agile DNA — we’re huge believers in the importance of prototypes and user-centricity. So as a Product Manager, my daily routine is putting two different caps on: being a proxy Product Owner and working closely with users to understand their needs; and being a Delivery Lead and being kept up to speed with the scrum squad — who are pretty independent and highly self-functioning anyway!
Speaking of DNA, one of our teams is actually called DNA — for Data N’ Analytics (shoutout to the team, so I don’t get beansprout pranks)!
And Product Manager is just one role amongst many within the team! Full stack developers, ML engineers, UX designers, data engineers, solution architects — and we continue to grow. As of writing this, here’s what we’re currently looking out for:
Taking Roots
But if we’re all so different, what binds us together?
“Purpose.”
This is a crazy fun team, filled with talented individuals from Amazon, Blackrock, McKinsey, GovTech, own startups etc — and what one quickly realises while being here is the strong sense of fulfilment and purpose.
As many living in Singapore would probably know by now, Temasek has been part of various local initiatives to help battle COVID-19, the most visible being that of the MaskSafe DET30™ initiative. But did you know of the many other initiatives that we undertake together with many of our partners and volunteers, both locally and internationally?
Over the past months, many fellow colleagues have stepped up to be part of these volunteering efforts, working on initiatives across diagnosis, containment & contact tracing, treatment, protection & prevention and enablement — and they take these up on top of their existing workloads, all with the hope that every little bit counts. Even as a relatively new joiner to the organisation, I too have now joined one of the initiatives and doing my bit to contribute!
But purpose isn’t only limited to COVID initiatives. We take great care in making decisions to build a sustainable world — not only in our investment decisions, but also in our own organisation (we achieved carbon neutrality for our company last year!)
And borrowing a quote from our Chief Technology Officer (hi Jon!) — how can we harness digital technology to build sustainable solutions? In fact, these challenges are also a key theme within our annual CEO Innovation Challenge, where various teams pit their prototypes and ideas against each other in our internal hackathons.
We also work closely with our academic institutions — there are regular tie-ups with SUTD, an initiative by a few of their alumnus within our team! If you’re a SMU penultimate/final year student from Business / IS, you’ll probably get to hear from me too when I do my sharing for certain modules about my work experiences — so you can keep a lookout!
As you can see, digital technology isn’t a department that a traditional silo-ed company might be accustomed to. Ours is a way of working, where digital is innate in how we do well (as an investor), do right (as an institution) and do good (as a community steward). It’s in overcoming traditional barriers of waterfall, old cumbersome technologies and “frameworks” in order to create the best product for our users. It’s in inculcating our agile ways of working not only in technology programs, but also in our business teams — and every facet of our working programs to ensure leanness and agility. It’s in building applications, platforms and solutions — but also in building bridges and foundations in striving towards a common purpose.
And as you can tell from this piece, the first 3 months have sped past! (Multiply the effects of a new job * working from home * COVID = time flies!) Each week is different from the last — with an ever-evolving product backlog, new sprints with improved features and team capabilities, working on new digital products and also being part of various COVID initiatives and most of all, new updates from the team on their coffee adventures, new cafe explorations and the occasional memes that pop up on Slack — these are all what you can expect from this crazy crew at Digital Technology!
Hope this gives you a good sense of how the first few days of being part of this crew is like! If there’s any topics you’d like to hear from us, get in touch — and till then, may you never expose your food dislikes to your team for fear of any delivery packages that may arrive from them ;)
