Terminal Member Spotlight: Software Engineer Yang Wang
If you spend even one day at 103 Richmond Street, you’re bound to notice Yang Wang and the organization, helpfulness, and humor that he brings to the Toronto Terminal Workspace. The Canadian Army Reserve peels his fruit with precision. When the office manager needs a helping hand, he raises his to volunteer. And when the room needs to lighten up a bit, it’s often Yang who throws in a well-timed joke. He approaches his work as a Full Stack engineer in a similar manner: he’s methodical, organized, curious and never without his sense of humor.
Late last year, Yang chose to take his considerable talents to Terminal partner Neptune Financial (Nepfin) — a company that enables efficient access to commercial lending for lower middle market companies. Working remotely, Yang is helping to bring NepFin to the next level while spending hours outside the office learning a new, even more rewarding skill — parenting. In this month’s member spotlight, we spoke with Yang about why he’s so excited about NepFin, why Toronto is so hot right now, and what it’s like to trade late night concerts for nighttime nursery rhymes.
Terminal: NepFin recently started building remote teams. What’s it like to be one of the foundational building blocks of a remote team?
Yang: It feels like being a pioneer. As the first hire, I relish the opportunity to shape the team’s culture and pick my future teammates! I also enjoy a lot of autonomy over how to get things done. On the other hand, I miss being able to grab a teammate and start a spontaneous discussion about architecture on the whiteboard. I can’t wait for the team to grow, and we’ve started that process.
Full Stack is in high demand at the moment. What was it about NepFin’s vision that made you want to join and help move the company forward?
I remember our co-founder Tom telling me that the use of technology in middle market commercial lending space involves emailing Excel spreadsheets and Powerpoints and using CRM tools. I remember how painful it was writing Excel macros using VBA in my past job and thought, surely we can build something better!
What’s a project your team is working on or recently finished that you are excited about?
I recently worked on a tool called Puppeteer to control headless Chrome browsers on AWS Lambda to monitor financial companies’ websites for news about investment deals in the market. Switching to Puppeteer from the previous tool reduced the failure rate and lowered the processing time by 50%. The experience also helped me on my personal project where I used Puppeteer to monitor Government of Canada’s immigration website to see when the Interest to sponsor parents/grandparents form was available. And yes, I managed to secure a spot for my wife’s parents.
You’ve spent a lot of time in Toronto — what’s it got on other cities? How about as a tech hub? Why is it special?
I’d say its greatest asset is the diversity and multiculturalism. I mean, even if you look just at the food alone — there’s so much variety that every weekly lunch so far has something new! Toronto is an expensive housing market — and if you’re not used to it, be ready for some snow days! As a tech hub, there are a lot of start-ups, start-up open houses, and tech networking sessions in Toronto.
You work in the same space as some great engineers — people like Simon who is working on Bungalow’s mobile app. What’s it like to work in a tech-focused shared space like that?
I really enjoy being able to learn from others. In fact, every lunch break feels like a mini tech meet-up where I can chat with other engineers about whether Angular or React is better, or get tips on how to conduct an interview.
What do you like to do in your free time?
I used to go ice skating, attend Toronto Symphony Orchestra concerts, and play chess. But since the birth of our son, I now spend my free time reading parenting books and learning nursery rhymes. The wheels on the bus go round and round…
You are in the Canadian Army. Do you bring any of the skills you learn there to the office?
…Well, the Principles of Marksmanship do come in handy when I take photos of the whiteboard for record-keeping after a brainstorming session! :) Knowing how to support the camera, control my breathing, and gently squeeze the shutter button makes the difference between a blurry and a sharp image in low-light situations.
What work resources do you use for inspiration?
I follow Thoughtwork’s Tech Radar to see which tools/frameworks/techniques are becoming popular or obsolete. I also read books on Safari online, which comes free with a Toronto Public Library membership! Some of the books I’ve read include Sam Newman’s Building Microservices, Uncle Bob’s Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship, and Hello Startup, which got me interested in working at startups in the first place.
Finally, if you hosted our next “Lunch and Learn,” what would you teach the office?
I could give some tips on how to bypass pesky paywalls using Chrome DevTools and Adblock plugins.
A big thanks to Yang for the interview! To read more Terminal member spotlights, click here.
