STORY ON HOW YOU JOINED LINE
Hi, I'm Aldo. I joined LINE Indonesia in 2018 as an Android Engineer in the Product & Engineering (P&E) Department. Since I was in college, everyone has been using LINE messenger, so when I heard LINE was opening a new position, I jumped at the chance.
The interesting parts of the recruitment process were the paper-based exam and the technical interview. I hadn't done a paper-based exam for years, so it was refreshing to do it again. Nevertheless, the paper-based exam made me focus on the answers instead of the user interface. I was interviewed by engineering leads in Korea using a teleconference room (Zoom wasn't popular back then), but the whole interview felt seamless. When we're discussing code, they could see what I wrote on my paper like they were in the same room as me.
From 2018 to 2020, I worked on the LINE Today app and LINE Help. The former is a native Android implementation of the LINE Today project, so users can read the news while utilizing the latest Android OS features, like dark mode. Next was a chatbot in LINE Messenger that helps users navigate through common issues. Nowadays, I'm working on an upcoming fintech project as both a server-side and Android engineer.
MOST MEMORABLE MOMENTS AT LINE
I cherished the moments when I was working on the LINE Today app in 2018-2019 with the Taiwan engineers.
There was a moment when we were working on a video-based article. My peers worked on the video player and I worked on the comment section. Since the video player and comment section existed on the same screen, we had to make sure they both worked correctly. The user must be able to read through comments while watching the video. It wasn't a simple thing to get right, especially when we found issues during the QA phase. But once we got it done, this feature contributed to the growth of user engagement.
Furthermore, we had many online and offline discussions, several workshops, and meals (and Bubble teas) together. I know that I enjoyed working together with them and I'm still sad we're not on the same team anymore. I felt very fortunate to work with talented engineers for a year or so.
DIFFICULTIES & SETBACKS
Of course, developing tech products is not easy. Here’s a story from when we were developing the LINE Today app.
In 2020, the LINE Today app was a mature project that had many features. We had this idea to modularize our project (the process of breaking a project into smaller sub-projects) to speed up the development time. Initially, we thought this would be a simple task. But even for a simple task, we needed to research it first.
After doing our research, we realized modularization is hard. To name a few challenges, we needed to decide which parts should be included or excluded in a module, how each module communicates, and how to do it while developing the feature. It took two months of research and two months of trial run to finally see the results. In the end, it was worth the journey. We significantly improved the build speed of not just the LINE Today app, but also other Android projects. The transition was slow and had many issues, but I'm happy that we made it through as a team.
GOALS & DREAMS
I want to keep expanding my knowledge of backend and infrastructure engineering. Many technical complexities are beautifully hidden from an application developer, so it's interesting to see how it works under the hood!
Thankfully, product & engineering gives engineers a chance to grow their skills beyond their main expertise. Solving a new problem is enough to motivate me each day.
LINE STYLE
If I had to choose only one, it would be "Work intensely and be focused." In engineering, working smart is unavoidable. Getting things done is not enough. You need to know how to break down your problem and solve it in the most effective way. As an example, if you fix a defect without thinking about the root cause, new problems will appear. Consequently, your colleagues will review your work repeatedly, wasting their valuable time or, worse, upsetting users.
To quote the LINE Style guide, "You should always be aware of the fundamentals underlying your work: What you are doing, for whom and why." That is why this LINE style is my favorite. It is truly applicable in my line of work.
FINAL COMMENT FOR FUTURE LINERS
As you can see from this website, LINE is a global company, so, you'll meet colleagues around the world! Together, we build a scalable and high-impact product that users love. Additionally, LINE puts a high priority on security and user privacy. If you want to learn how to build a secure and privacy-driven product, come join us at LINE!
Find out more about LINE Indonesia's openings here.
