PickTrace is proud to be a team of diverse backgrounds, skill sets, and interests. Each week we highlight members of our team to learn about what makes them, and PickTrace, unique.
Get to know Site Reliability Engineer, Yuan Fang!
When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
- To be honest, I don’t remember – but my parents found an old video of me from Kindergarten where I was interviewed and said I wanted to be a doctor. I don’t remember that at all
- Maybe at some point I heard people speaking highly about doctors and decided I wanted to be one
How did you get started in Engineering?
- During my studies as a Chemistry PhD student I was working as a research assistant and in that time I realized that research and wet-bench experiments may not be what I most enjoy. It’s very different from what you do in undergrad where in those experiments you know for sure you’ll get a result. I also realized I didn’t want to become a professor, so I was exploring other things I might like to do.
- Chemistry and coding sound different – but when I was doing chem research I was writing a lot of scripts to automate processes and work on data analysis based on coding.
- Instead of those wet lab experiments I wanted to be somewhere working on a computer running code. That eventually led me towards this dev ops job
You’ve been with PickTrace about a year and a half – What’s a favorite memory from your time here?
- The team offsites are always great and when the engineering team went whale watching last year it was the most fun.
- Mostly I appreciate whenever we have time to enjoy something fun with coworkers. Usually you’re just working together, so doing something outside of the work and seeing how people think and act outside of work is special
What are your hobbies and passions outside of work?
- Still Lego sets. I recently finished the Harry Potter astronomy tower that my friend gave me and I have another set that’s a Super Mario block and a Lego globe set as well
- When you build from small blocks and pieces it’s amazing to see how something comes together into a big piece. And sometimes it’s amazing to see how you put different shapes of pieces together to make a leaf or flower – how they use standard pieces that are completely different from what they become.
- I also find Legos are a very nice thing that you don’t have to think about – you can just follow the instructions. It helps me to calm down and forget about stresses and anxieties in life
What’s the best advice you’ve ever received – or do you have a mantra you live by?
- “The best time to plant a tree was 10 years ago. The second best time is now.”
- If there’s regrets about past decisions or things didn’t go as planned, just do it (take the action) now.
If you were a fruit or vegetable what would you be and why?
- Probably an avocado – I feel it’s very different when this fruit has been viewed from the outside vs the inside. The inside is very soft and rich, but the outside just looks like a black stone. I feel like my inside and outside are sometimes different – that’s how my friends describe me.
- Also avocados have a pretty hardcode and I’m trying to be hardcore as well – work hard and not give up.
