GDipSA52 Graduate, 2022 and Senior Application Engineer at Oracle Canada, Austin Ma
Programming and snowboarding may have more life lessons in common than you think. Just ask NUS-ISS Graduate Diploma in Systems Analysis (GDipSA) alumnus, Austin, who is also an avid snowboarder based in Canada.
"When I developed my first set of codes, it was quite discouraging to see that perhaps I was not naturally gifted in the area. But I buckled myself up, constantly did practice after practice during and after class. I did side projects to learn more about programming and there was a lightbulb moment where I was rewarded, when building a feature without any help. Similarly, during my first snowboarding session, I spent at least half of it falling… (yet), I was able to pick up the basics near end of that session,” said Austin.
Both has taught Austin the value of persistence in practice, determination to succeed and to enjoy the view atop different scenic mountains. He has never looked back since.
As a non-IT graduate who started his career working in a pharmaceutical company and later transiting into a digital product manager at a health and security service company in Singapore, Austin’s decision to not pursue a PHD in biochemistry caused him to be in a state of disarray in terms of his career path earlier on.
“Having always had an interest in technology, I was not sure if going back to school right away was the right choice. Hence, I transited into digital project/product management to evaluate my options. I enjoyed this very much, and felt that I should have the technical skills to support my team and its projects. This triggered my decision to fully dive into software development” shares Austin.
Hearing many great stories from friends who hired interns from the GDipSA programme, Austin investigated several options in terms of reputation, cost, time required and results and “NUS-ISS programme came out on top mainly because of the possible networking opportunity, job security after completion, history of remarkable instructors and also being relatively time efficient since although the programme is one year – there is a five month internship that helps most students secure an offer right after”.
A new hobby: learning new technology in an ever-changing digital landscape
Putting in the hard work, NUS-ISS had provided the foundation for Austin to continue this learning journey in the real-world. Austin now works as a Senior Application Engineer in multinational technology corporation Oracle, Canada where he works on Oracle’s customer relationship management (CRM) systems. His work aims to modernise and improve technology for salespeople. Besides enjoying his time as a fully remote employee, Austin also gets the opportunity to meet with colleagues for occasional in-person collaborations.
Pictured above: Austin (right) with his project team mates at Oracle, Canada
“Whether it is studying or working, instead of focusing on the framework, it is more fruitful to keep practicing the fundamentals and adapt to any technology for the future,” Austin emphasises.
This resonates with what Austin's direct manager, based in America, Kaarthik Balasubrahmanian, Director, Engineering, Oracle shares about the skillset that GDipSA students bring to the table. "A good foundation focused on design principles, logic and reasoning, and the willingness to learn, adapt and challenge one’s self is valuable in the workplace."
Kaarthik adds that he leads a group of highly energetic and passionate people responsible for the next generation Oracle Fusion Sales products and integrations which includes AI-powered intelligent content recommendations, personalised workspaces and a simple and intuitive user interface. "The products and platforms we build are at the heart of the organisation's digital transformation and are all made possible with support from graduates across the board."
Closer to home, Jeffrey Salleh, Director, Java Management Service, Oracle Singapore shares that GDipSA graduate’s exposure to the Software Development Lifecycle using agile/scrum methodology is useful for them to understand how the project is managed and the agile/scrum ceremonies that are observed. The Java module delivered sets up the graduates better to be able to contribute to the project as it is the language of choice in Oracle and the number one language developers expect to use in the future.
“Moreover, some of the graduates are career-switchers from other industries to the tech industry, they are able to draw their past experiences and transfer the good practices into their current work,” Jeffrey adds.
On future training and development in Oracle, he adds that NUS-ISS must continue to play a role to expose the students to understand the expectations of an enterprise software vendor in many other key areas beyond just the implementation of functional software features.
We wish Austin all the best in his future endeavors!
Find out more about the Graduate Diploma in Systems Analysis programme here.