Life at DIR
"My name is William Fang, I’m a Senior SharePoint Developer/Administrator and currently working in Information Technology Services Division at DIR. As a software engineer and a member of the DIR Dream Team (IT Application Development Team), my work consists primarily of evaluating, designing, developing, and maintaining the complex systems/applications of DIR and also serve as the SharePoint Developer/Administrator and Salesforce Developer responsible for supporting user applications and tools like Azure DevOps, Visual Studio 2019, Visual Studio Code, Oracle, Salesforce, SQL Server, Business Objects, SharePoint applications, web interfaces and web services. Additionally, my work supports client server applications and programming environments that are also part of the DIR computing environment. I also assist in the planning, scheduling, and performance of programming projects, coordinating programming projects, analyzing proposed computer applications, planning, documenting, and developing programs to provide technical assistance to users and management.
A day in my role: I usually arrived onsite at 8:00 am. When I am working remotely, my workday still kicks off about the same time. I really enjoy working in open office spaces and our team at DIR is lucky to work in such a space that brings us more closely together and helps better communication that boosts collaboration. It is so fun to listen to my teammates talk about what has happened after work, such as the good and the bad and the new challenges that have surfaced. After a short gathering, I then work for a while, meaning, I mostly write code, review code with other developers, and/or troubleshoot production issues. As for the last part, we do that quite a lot. There are plenty of things to take care of to make sure everything is working smoothly. There are lots of applications written by different tools and platforms. Quite often, my work is momentarily paused to attend project meetings – they usually range from 30 minutes to an hour. Time always flies by quickly, and once again, it is time for lunch. When onsite in the WPC building, I like to visit the cafeteria to order my meal. On other days, I also enjoy walking 3 - 4 blocks to choose another place for state employees. Also, the downtown area offers many good restaurants to choose from; For example, our team has a tradition where we pick a different restaurant each week to bond and talk. After lunch, I will work some more. This includes coding, reviewing codes, testing my solutions, fixing some minor issues, finding someone to show it to, and maybe joining some meetings. Especially since the pandemic, we have worked a ton with Microsoft Teams. Lastly, at the end of the workday, I will head home at 5:00 pm to relax and get some time with my family, while looking forward to a new day of work for the following day."