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Serena Tong

Software Engineer I at Immuta

Serena Tong was inspired by her brothers to study computer science and become an engineer.

YEARS AS AN ENGINEER: 7 months

COLLEGE ATTENDED: University of Maryland, College Park

COLLEGE DEGREE: B.S. Computer Science

EXPLAIN YOUR CURRENT JOB ROLE: I first started as an application support software engineer, and my role consisted of helping with customer issues, which included replicating problems, troubleshooting, debugging and providing support to customers and to other engineers. Now, my role is moving away from being customer-oriented and more towards working alongside other engineers on my team in contributing code and providing support/ideas to each other.

WHY DID YOU BECOME AN ENGINEER? I struggled for a while in knowing what I wanted to do with my career. To be honest, my two older brothers largely influenced me to choose computer science when I was applying to colleges, and since I had dabbled in a few CS-related courses in high school, I figured I could just change majors if I started to really dislike it. Why did I stay as an engineer is probably the better question for me, and the reason is because I find it very rewarding, and I enjoy the critical thinking . . . and I enjoy coding!

WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOUR JOB? My position here at Immuta has been an awesome experience so far. The other engineers are really supportive, and I feel I’m given a lot of self-autonomy even as just an entry-level engineer. I think this job has been the best opportunity for me growth wise, and the projects and tasks that I’m working on I find really interesting and stimulating.

WHAT IS THE MOST CHALLENGING THING ABOUT YOUR JOB? The most challenging thing about my job goes hand in hand with my lack of experience in the industry and company compared to other, more senior engineers. It was a challenge to familiarize myself with the codebase, and it’s been challenging coming across tasks that deal with things that I’ve never encountered or learned before. Tasks that take others a day or two may take me longer.

WHAT ADVICE DO YOU HAVE FOR KIDS? Work really hard in school, but make sure to enjoy it too. A career is important, but so is having fun and being kind to others. The cherry on top is if you get to combine it all!