Tech Candidate Spotlight – Christine Kim, Senior Software Engineer

This post was originally published on this site.

I graduated with a B.S. in Computer Science from Brandeis University. I also worked at the IT Help Desk while at school, and had an engineering internship my junior year summer.

Having a solid foundation during my B.S. Computer Science degree made the biggest impact on my tech career. Since then, I had supportive managers who encouraged learning and attending conferences.

What would you like to learn more about?

Eventually, I want to take on a people manager role and would love to know what that entails. I’m sure there are a lot of things that I don’t yet have experience with.

What led you to pursue a career in tech?

I wasn’t one of those students who always knew I loved coding or computers. But in high school, I took one mandatory Computer Science class. Even then, I didn’t take away much except that it was pretty fun and made a lot of sense to me. Later, when I went to college, I realized CS could be a career.

How has your skill set evolved throughout your career?

At first, I came with a lot of basics and academic part of Computer Science knowledge. I didn’t yet know how I would apply it to real-life projects. But through my internship and personal projects, I saw how a real company runs. Then, in the first few years of my career, I rotated around different teams and projects. I realized what I really loved and that I was passionate about Android Development.

If you chose to specialize in one area, what was it and why?

I chose to pursue Android Development in depth because something about the platform resonated with me. I personally prefer Androids for my mobile device, but that wasn’t the complete reason. I enjoy that Android development feels like a mix of back-end and front-end engineering, and I like how easily accessible and visible my work can be.

Is your new role different from previous ones?

My new role is completely remote, which is different from my in-office role at my last company. Although my last company transitioned to being remote during the pandemic, I still had a rapport from the in-office days. That kind of connection is harder when you start with a remote company, but I love the culture of flexibility and work-life balance.

What are you most excited about in your new role?

I’m most excited about getting to know the product space better because it’s not a product that I personally use or have experience with. I’m also excited about working with the native mobile SDK. It’s different from the feature work that I’m used to doing.

What was your job search experience like before you joined Hired?

It was really hard to find the right opportunities for me, and I wasn’t even sure if I was looking in the right places. It was also a lot of legwork on my part to find those opportunities, apply, and then wait indefinitely for somebody to reach back out.

What’s your best advice for jobseekers on the Hired platform?

I think having a solid profile is the most helpful. That way, recruiters can best assess your background and send you the job opportunities that you are best fit for. After that, it’s all about being patient and going back to interview basics.

What would you tell someone who’s curious about Hired?

Hired is a no-brainer to sign up on Hired. It widens your search for a new job and gives you a better fighting chance than a lot of other platforms.

Any general advice you’d like to give other tech professionals?

Going back to interview basics is important no matter where you are in your career. And it’s equally as important to know how to present your valuable experience in a short amount of time in an interview setting.

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About DraftKings

DraftKings is an innovative daily fantasy sports contest and sports betting company. Founded in 2012, DraftKings has 1501-5000 employees and is headquartered in Boston.

Benefits

401K plan, tuition reimbursement, health/dental/vision/life/disability insurance, diversity program, flexible working hours, employee groups and committees, and more.

Tech Stack

C#.NET MVC, React, JavaScript, Swift, AWS, MySQL, Bitbucket, JIRA, Datadog, RabbitMQ, Python, Confluence, Single-Page Applications, Redis, AWS Elastic Load Balancing (ELB), Amazon Relational Databases (RDS), .NET, Xamarin, Octopus Deploy, Bamboo, Git, Elastic Stack (ELK), new relic, TypeScript, Redux, Docker, Chef, Powershell, Ubuntu, NGINX, VMWare vSphere, Akamai, Kotlin, Solidity

Can you share a little bit about your educational background?