CodePath EES2024 SHEIN - Engineering to Transform Customer Experiences

Hi everyone. Welcome to the breakout session, Engineering to Transform Customer Experiences hosted by Shien. Super excited to have you all join us today.

I will be introducing our speakers shortly, but first I just wanted to share a couple reminders. One, feel free to utilize the chat during the session to share conversations and your thoughts on what’s being presented. Remember to keep your messages to the topic of the session and note that the presenters and speakers can see the chat.

Our team will also be monitoring the chat and we’ll make sure that questions get answered when we get to the Q&A portion. You can share those in the Q&A section. And then following the section, we just ask that you complete a very brief feedback survey so that we can make these events even better for next year.

So with those reminders out of the way, I would like to bring up our first speaker from the Shien team, Mr. Cameron Rand Luby, senior talent acquisition partner. Thank you for that introduction. Yeah, again, my name is, Cameron Ran Lubie.

I am a a senior talent acquisition partner here at Shien. And we’re very excited to be talking you know with CodeBan in our partnership with u with EES and we’re going to go over you know the company and we’re you know very excited always looking to diversify you know our candidate pipeline and that is that if you can move to the next slide please. So with my background specifically you know I started as a as a recruiter at an agency and I’ve been doing technical recruiting for over five years now specifically with Sheen.

You know I started in 2022 and I’ve seen a lot of growth that we’ve had. I went to school originally University of Colorado Boulder and I studied economics. If we move the next slide, we’ll make an introduction for Dan the engineering leadership US engineering leadership here here at Chen.

So I’ve spent over 20 years in in software development. Most of it has been at startups. But I’ve also spent some time in large global organizations like LinkedIn, Microsoft and and and now Shien.

They asked me what what what my hobbies were for this slide, but I’ve got two small children. So honestly I spend most of my time yelling at the top of my lungs or eating leftover food like halfeaten chicken nuggets and pizza crusts. Let’s hand it back to Cam for the next slide.

Thank you, Daniel. And so a lot of you guys, I’m sure, are familiar with with Shien, you know, as a company. And as you probably know, it’s a e-commerce marketplace mainly offering apparel items, but we have made a push to move into other categories like home decor, beauty, cosmetics as well.

And, you know, it’s a Chinese founded company originally in 2012. We’re headquartered now in in Singapore. And it’s a global company serving over 150 different countries and you know 30% of our market is actually here in the US but having that said we didn’t really start scaling up our team until about really mid 2021 and so today specifically we’ll be talking about gene technology and if we can move to the next slide please you know in parallel with Sheen technology we have our our two sister companies, Sheen Distribution and Style Link Logistics.

She distribution has all the traditional departments like HR, product marketing, legal, you name it. Over 500 employees here in the US and then Stylink Logistics has over a thousand employees. We have just about 10 distribution centers that we’ve launched in the US.

We already have a presence in Canada, Mexico, and we’re going to continue to grow. Sheen technology is comprised of largely cyber security. We have security engineering, security operations, governance, risk and compliance and a robust software engineering team that Dan leads.

Beyond that we also have global enterprise IT site reliability engineering big data and machine learning AI as well. And we can go ahead and move to the next slide. So that is spread out you know with offices across the US.

We have our LA headquarters hubs in San Diego, PaloAlto, Belleview, Washington, Seattle and Philadelphia DC and Whitesttown, Indiana. And we can move to the the next slide. So, we have a video that we wanted to play for you guys.

One of the biggest questions we get here at Sheen is how our prices are so affordable. The answer is actually pretty simple. We begin the design process with you, the customer.

When Sheen drops a new style, we start with a small batch order of only 100 to 200 units. Because Sheen doesn’t have physical stores, there’s no need to produce thousands of units at a time. Then, we use innovative technology to track which items are trending in real time and quickly stock more to meet your demands.

With this unique approach, Sheen aims for variety over volume. Offering more of the items you love and less of the ones you don’t. We’ve cut inventory wasted to a fraction compared to traditional retail stores.

And the best part is that we pass those savings directly to you. At Sheen, we’re proud to be your fashion destination for ontrend styles and our business model makes it possible. To learn more, visit sheenroup.com.

Great. Yeah. And we can go ahead and move to the the next slide.

And so you know as I mentioned previously since 2021 we have scaled up our technology arm Sheen Technology you know pretty rapidly and we you know have some growth that we’re going to continue through this year and into 2025. And you know the the main cell that I always say across the board and specifically with positions on our software engineer engineering team are definitely no exception is that you know you have a very unique kind of combination of factors right now where you have like the backing and you know funding of a large company like Shien but at the same time you know we are functioning realistically in many respects like a startup and so there’s definitely an opportunity you know for like personal progression as well as like making a big impact on the work you’re doing that you wouldn’t really have in a more established space and you know crosschain technology there’s definitely that opportunity specifically with the positions on Dan’s team that I’ll talk about very interesting stuff that that he and his team are doing. So I’m going to go ahead and hand it over to Dan to give you guys a better understanding of what his team does.

Cool. Thanks Cam. So I think why why why you’re all here is you know that you know Shien has done things that no other tech company has has ever done to create and and and and bring you affordable products that that that that that you love.

And today I’m going to be talking a little bit about how our US-based software engineering team which is relatively new is a part of that. So next slide please. So first of all just a little bit about the team.

So we’re a small but mighty and you know hopefully with your help growing team of seven right now. In in two locations so San Diego and Belleview just outside of Seattle. But we’re part of this hundred strong global organization you know with w with with folks in in locations like like Singapore and in China and Europe.

Our team members have anywhere from literally zero to you know 20 plus years or you know in my case 150 years of of professional work experience. And we do true full stack software development. So our main focus is on on building back-end microservices using technologies like Java 8 Spring Boot my baddest my SQL we have our own highly optimized infrastructure as a service and platform as a service technologies that we use to manage probably one of the largest multicloud deployments in the entire world.

In addition to that we also do front-end development using technologies like like React and Vue. We do native mobile development on on both iOS and and Android. And at the moment my team doesn’t directly work on machine learning algorithms but we work very closely with our our our world-class AI team to productize and and and scale their their work in order to bring it to our customers.

So like I mentioned earlier like we’re a relatively new team and it kind of gives us the best of both worlds. And what I mean by that is on the one hand we’ve been able to kind of stand on the on the shoulders of giants. So no matter what the subject matter is you know technical business or or otherwise there’s worldclass expertise within the Shien global organization that that that we’re able to to to leverage to learn about topics that we’re not familiar with.

On the other hand, we’ve also had this privilege of being able to have lots of green field conversations with our business leaders about their top strategic priorities and their pain points. And a lot of what my team is bu doing is building brand new applications and systems from the ground up to address some of those needs. Because of that you know we highly prize technical proficiency but some of the most important attributes to be successful on this team are you know a tremendous amount of open-mindedness and then also really strong communication skills.

So and if we can go to the next slide I’ll start talking about some of the things that that that that we’re working on that that that that I alluded to earlier. So next slide please. So one of our top strategic priorities is localization of our our our supply chain.

So as you all know Shien sort of pioneered the use of predictive demand forecasting to you know not only get our customers the the the products that they they they really want more quickly u but also to dramatically reduce supply chain waste. And what one of our more recent focuses as a as a company has been to take all of that a step further u with supply chain localization. And there’s two aspects of that that that I’ll talk about.

So the first one is we’ve been rapidly expanding the Shien marketplace where thirdparty merchants can can sell through Shien to to to customers on on the Shien platform and what that’s going to going to result in is over time more of what you buy on Shien will be shipped to you directly from from from merchants and and sellers in in in your region. Sort of shortening the supply chain dramatically. Now I’m going to come back to this this later.

Another aspect of localization is very rapidly expanding our network of global distribution warehouses. So one of the things that that that we’re trying to get better at is using predictive algorithms to stage popular products in the local market so that the things you buy are more likely to ship to you locally. As opposed to from overseas.

In fact our goal in was to has been to double the number of US orders that ship directly from from a US warehouse and and not from overseas. Now specifically how how how my team is involved in that. Now Shien has some of the largest distribution warehouses in in in the entire world.

And in addition to floor space and you know a vast number of staff warehouse associates associates in in in those locations, we also have a ton of hardware. So that’s anything from robots to tens of thousands of these handheld barcode scanners. We call them PDAs.

That our associates use to to scan orders as they they they go in and out in in our warehouses. Now at our scale you can imagine that lost defective or misconfigured devices it’s going to be massively costly. Now there there are categories of commercial software so device management or enterprise asset management software platforms that exist to help manage these these types of devices.

But at our footprint the commercial software solutions that we looked at would cost millions of dollars a year and none of them fully met our requirements. So what we decided to do was to build our own. So, we’ve been in the in the process of building and and launching, an, Shien’s own enterprise asset management platform, called WearMe.

Where the goal is to make sure that, all of these tens of thousands of devices, globally are, you know, online, able to to to properly connect to the network, properly configured, have up-to-date software. We’re maintaining user accountability so we know you know which associate has has has checked out which device and where the device is is in the warehouse. And a slew of other functionality.

Now because these devices run Android like this is a a true soft full stack development project. So we’re doing you know Android mobile app development using cotlin we have a react front end and then we have our Java micros microser back end. So it’s been challenging sort of wrangling all all of those technologies that our team didn’t necessarily have expertise in upfront.

It’s been great to be able to lean on our global teams to help us come come up to speed. But really the hardest part of this this initiative has been not the technical implementation side but really you know getting our hands dirty understanding these complex industrial processes and coordinating communication and requirements between all of these different operational teams from enterprise IT to security to logistics and and and warehouse management. So that’s a little bit about that.

So if we go to the next slide I’ll I can talk about u sort of one of the the the other cool things that we’ve been working on. So product offerings. So, one fun fact that that that that you, may not have known is, even though like Shien, brings, like like vastly more new products online every day than many of our competitors.

We still like make an ma make an effort to make sure that a human product reviewer is able to vet every first pro first first party product that she sells in the US before it goes online. So humans are are are reviewing every new product to make sure that there’s no intellectual property infringement to make sure that there’s no in inappropriate content. And you know from the beginning this product review team has had a sophisticated set of tools and machine learning algorithms that they lean on to facilitate the process.

Now where we’ve spent a lot of time recently is because with the Shia marketplace coming online the marketplace has vastly increase the the the universe of of of products that need to be reviewed every day. So we’ve really had to you know sort of up the Annie on on on the technology that the product review team has at their fingertips in order to to to to review all of these you know thousands of new products that that that that are coming online. So to that end our AI team so team that we work with very closely they’ve been working on a new generation of AI algorithms that make use of techniques like multimodality so you know taking into account both you know the text and imagery and in and context in in product listings and you know also things like you know secure private large language models so things like that in order to to improve the quality of the machine learning algorithms that that that we use for for for product review at the same time so you know working handinhand with the with the AI team our team on the software engineering side we’ve been working on productization and scale and also helping to create more optimized user experiences in the tools that that that that our product review team uses.

And I’m pleased to say like like like some of the stuff has just recently gone online. But what we’ve seen from really early data is that with this new generation of algorithms and tools a single human product reviewer can be more than 20 times more efficient than they were before. So they can review more than 20x the number of products per day that they they they they previously could.

So you know huge win huge win for for for the business. And you know one thing one thing I’ll say here for for for you know folks who are really interested in in in getting into in into AI but you know you you know maybe questioning whether you have the right background. In this day and age every software engineer works on AI like you you you you don’t have to have a PhD and even if you’re not you know going deep into TensorFlow and and PyTorch and you know creating these machine learning algorithms like in order for those machine learning algorithms to actually help anyone they need to be integrated into production application software and that’s a large part of the mandate of of my team.

So let’s go to the next slide. So finally I I wanted to talk a little bit again like on the topic of our of our Shien marketplace on you know what we’re doing to help create a a more seamless experience and a more seamless relationship between our our customers and these new thirdparty sellers that we’re bringing on on board into in into the Shien marketplace. And one thing that that that I’ll say about this particular initiative that that that that’s also like something that you know you should think about embarking on a on a software engineering career is in addition to creating c custom software like like building building software from scratch.

One of the the the the sort of biggest components of of of this this task for for for for our team was to evaluate and work with and ultimately integrate APIs from these best of breed thirdparty vendors. So specifically what we did here was we started a a process to assess third-party vendors that could help us do things like merchant identity verification. So you know we want to make sure that new merchants that want to sell on on the Shien marketplace are who they say they are.

We also looked at vendors for things like payment transaction monitoring. So we want to make sure that when there’s a payment from a customer through the Shien marketplace to these thirdparty vendors that that flow of funds is you know completely seamless and and flawless. And you know because there there there there are companies out there that that that focus on on these types of things at scale we took a look at thirdparty vendors that could satisfy our scale and our security privacy and compliance requirements and and ultimately we went through vendor selection and integration with Shien’s transaction and and payment and and monitoring systems.

So a lot of this stuff is is is new and and just coming online. So I don’t have too many stats to share but one sort of you know key key key key insight from this project that that that I really wanna want to share is you know oftentimes with with with these sort sorts of initiatives the the vendor assessment piece the coordination and planning you know that part actually ends up being an you know an order of magnitude ude more effort and and more work than you know the final act of you know writing the code to to integrate this set of this set of third party APIs but you know in in my many years of experience that’s it’s a large part of largecale software engineering so and this particular initiative is is is just an example of that so with that I will hand it back to Cam Thank you so much, Dan. That was a a great presentation.

Very interesting stuff. And you know, I did just want to highlight you know, that we you know, we are continuing to grow. And you know, as we’re continuing to scale the teams up, you know, through this year and next, I wanted to move to the next slide and we can show some of our current openings.

These positions are active postings that we have live right now. And, I would always refer you to look at our career site or LinkedIn page. Specifically for our technology positions, you’re going to want to go on LinkedIn on Sheen Technology.

And those jobs will always reflect our current openings. And, you know, you can look at the descriptions, apply for those that are you know, well suited for your background. And then if there is a specific role that you know you’re most interested in, I always encourage you know candidates to maybe set a job alert for that and you could be notified if that opportunity opens up with Sheen Technology.

So at the very end of the presentation my LinkedIn will be shown again you know my name is Cameron and I would encourage you to in parallel with applying you can reach out to me directly over LinkedIn is always a good good way to do that and I’d be more than happy to connect. We’re going to do a little Q&A right now and if you have any further questions you can continue to add them to the chat. Thank you guys.

All right. Just a reminder that you can drop questions in the Q&A section and you can upload questions that you want to hear Daniel and Cameron answer. I’m going to start with the top voted question which says, "Does sheen accept OPT or CPT for internships and new grad roles?

When will Sheen SW internships come out?" I know you were talking a little bit about open roles, Cameron, but maybe you can elaborate a little more. Yeah, so that’s a really good question. And with visas in general, you know, we always do want to attract you know, a diverse set of candidates and you know, I know that in the past I’ve worked with a lot of candidates with all sorts of backgrounds and with student visas specifically, that’s generally something that we can work with without much much issue.

But you know when you speak with the talent acquisition partner regarding the opportunity it’s always good to be transparent and you know we could address your specific situation at that time. And then specifically in regards to internship opportunities, we did this year have summer interns for each of our technology teams and that was you know opened up I think for the job postings a few months beforehand. So, for next year, I would encourage you set a job alert or keep your eye on the the Sheen Technologies career site and you’ll be able to see see the internships once posted.

Thank you. The next question says, does Sheen hire for data science and software engineering new grad roles? With that I data science specifically you know you would have to look on our careers page to see if there’s an active posting you know for that I know that currently I’m not aware of any data science positions that we have open but if there is a need and we are open to someone that has you know, fewer years of experience.

You could see that posting and it’s always you know not a bad idea even if the position has more experience you know listed on the job description. You could always apply, reach out directly and there’s a potential chance that you know we’d be able to take a candidate that might you know grow into a more senior role. Yeah, I would say like in in general like we we don’t rule out new grads like we’ve we’ve had some amazing new grads join join the team in including this this this past summer through the through the internship program but yeah to to Cam’s point like like referred to our our job postings for hiring needs at at any given time.

Awesome. Thank you both. Next question is from Rohan who says, "Does getting a referral from a current Sheen employee boost the chances of getting an interview for an internship or new grad role?" It’s a great question and I would say plainly yes you know if if you have someone that that you know and you know regarding a specific opportunity we do have a referral program and of course we you know do treat you know candidates you know fairly with the interview process but it’s never a bad thing to have a a referral that you know with a Right.

And then can you talk more about what that referral process looks like? You know, that’s a you know, internal process that we have within our organization to incentivize that. You know, just like many companies you know, referrals can be submitted internally and then you know, you would apply for the specific position.

But you know, if there’s a a specific role and you know, someone that you know, it’s never a bad thing. You know to to reach out to them, you know, get a better sense and have have them put you in contact with either the recruiter or you know just just submitting that internal internal or excuse me applying and then they would they would submit the internal referral. Awesome.

Next question is from Camila. I hope I’m saying that right. What can we expect from the interview process for full-time roles?

Yeah, that’s also a great question. You know, all of our interview processes consist of a similar structure. You know, an initial interview with the the manager and then an on-site interview.

But you know, Dan, if you wanted to share a little bit about what your specific interview process looked like, that’d be great. Yeah. So, so on on the technical front we’ll we’ll do a a couple of live coding interviews.

So the first one will be more practical like you know hey can you build a web application that does X or a micros service that does X you know while I watch you do it. Most candidates actually have a lot of fun with that one. In in in addition to that we’ll we’ll also do like a whiteboard coding interview.

So kind of more you know lead code style. And then we’ll do system design as well. And you know like in in in in general like like that’s kind of what like the technical portion looks like.

But depending on the specific role or level of of of seniority we may have variations on that. Thank you for elaborating more on that. Next question also from Camila says, "How how does working with the international team work and do you work on West Coast hours daytoday?" That’s a great question.

I know that our core hours are you know 10:00 a.m. To 4 pm you know for in office work. Of course, depending on the team, you know, some teams may may come in a bit earlier, leave a bit earlier or a bit later, but you know, Dan, I know that your team does do some work with the overseas team.

If you wanted to share Yeah. So, so if you’re if you’re in a in a more like operations focused team like like if you’re in S, for for for instance, they they have to, you know, kind of follow the sun and and support Shien round the clock. So some of some of some of those teams like have a little bit more eclectic work hours.

On on the software engineering side like most people work you know regular business hours in in the office. And occasionally there will be like an evening meeting or with you know somebody in Asia or an early morning meeting with somebody in in Europe. But it’s not a regular thing.

Or we we we try not to make it a regular thing because it like it nobody likes that. So like in general like if you’re on a software engineering team like you’ll be working regular West Coast business hours. All right.

Next question is for Dan. Someone wants to know, "What did you major in?" I know Cameron said he majored in economics. Oh, computer science.

Surprise, surprise. Awesome. On to the next question.

All right. Question from Rohan. With such heavy turnover with your products compared to other marketplaces and short product life cycles, what kinds of problems does that pose for your devs?

I think that Dan would be most qualified to answer this one. Wow. That that that’s that’s a really interesting question and I think it’s some of these problem areas that that that that I talked about earlier.

You know like like we just have a many more products you know virtually flowing through our our our our our our infrastructure and you know a a lot more you know physical inventory like you know flowing through our warehouses in in real life than a a typical company that you know in in the retail space. So, really like the the the challenge is is just scale. Like, you know, nobody else in in in in fast fashion brings online anywhere near the number of new products on a on on a daily basis as as Shien does.

So, the conventional wisdom from you know, other other organizations doesn’t really apply here. Like we we we’ve had to build a lot of things from from the ground up like like even e even you know like I like I mentioned like we’ve we have our own custom you know pass solution and our own custom you know infrastructure as a service solution for for for for managing our multi cloud deployments that’s necessitated by the scale right and this custom device management solution that that that my team is is is working on Now, that’s that that’s also also necessitated by the scale. So, like if you want to work on on problems that are, you know, bigger than you’re you’re you’re likely to see anywhere else, you know, this is this this is the place to come and and hang out.

Very cool. Hopefully that answered your question, Harry. That was a really great question.

Thank you for sharing that one. A question from Theiola. As you expand your team and recruit for technical roles, how do you ensure that your design processes remain innovative and original, especially in light of concerns about similarities with other brands?

You mean the design like product design like or or or or technical design? Diola, if you want to add a little bit more context for your question in the chat, that would probably be helpful. I think I can speak to technical design first.

Like basically like one of the one of the the the the ways that we do it is by bringing multiple different perspectives to bear on each problem. So like the advantage of having this this this global team it means that you know when we when we come up with new new new technical designs you know first of all like like like like we always are very collaborative with a with with our technical design process. And because we we we we have so many so many diverse perspectives from from all over the world you know people from from from different backgrounds it it it it does help to to to drive innovation in in in the technical design process.

I think part of it too is we’re a very flat or organization. So you know both like like from from from an HR perspective like there there there aren’t many layers between individual contributors in in top level management. But practically speaking like like if if you’re a a new grad joining the team as an IC you can have a conversation with you know one of our global executives.

You could just start a chat with them and share your ideas and and get their feedback and you know a lot of major like initiatives have have have started that way. So you know the company’s built for a diverse set of perspectives and we encourage communication and and conversation about everything that we do but in particular technical design. So and I think that helps to to to to keep the innovation level high.

Thank you for that. I’m skipping around a bit on the questions because I want to get a good mix of technical and then questions about hiring. So thank you for answering the last few, Dan.

This might be more of a question for Cameron. What are some requirements or experiences you look for in candidates? Do grad students have better opportunities to get hired for internships than undergrads?

That’s from you know that that’s a really good question. I think you know really depends on the role of course. In general of course you want to have you know experience that aligns with you know what’s listed in the in the job description.

But by no means is a graduate degree you know a requirement for for most positions. I think that there may be some technical roles that that may be more of an advantage for but you know making yourself stand out. I think it’s always a good idea to you know curtail your your resume accordingly but also you know reaching out directly like I said before you know adding a personal touch if you know someone within the organization kind of networking that way and making yourself stand out I think is it’s also a good call maintain the relationship over time even if there isn’t something listed like currently you can always reach out to me or someone you know here at the company and start the conversation earlier than if something comes up down the line or when you graduate, that’s always something you can pick up again.

Awesome. I’m going to also tag on this question that you answered the first part of it already, but someone wants to know what does Sheen look for, which you kind of just spoke on, but how does it track the growth of new hires and reviews? That’s a good question, too.

So with with you know performance I know that we across the company you know do look at performance by annually you know for the first half and the second half and you know you would work depending on the team you know with your your manager and and more senior leadership on you know setting goals and and then touching base midway through and then ultimately you know evaluating how you performed. Pretty standard as it is in most organizations and it’s a pretty dynamic environment. So things oftentimes you know will change but as far as you know setting goals that’s always something that you would work with your direct manager on and making sure that you have clear expectations on you know what is expected.

Yeah, I I would add that we we we make an effort to be very very data driven in in everything that we do, but on the performance and evaluation front too. So basically everybody in the organization has KPIs and and OKRs. You know part of the the the the job of the management team and in and the HR team is to help everybody in the organization to formulate those those those KPIs and in in OKRs in a way that’s not only good for the business but but but also helps to to to foster your career.

But it’s it’s it’s it’s nice to it was you know great for me like when when when I first joined this organization to to to see how how how how data driven it it is awesome. Thank you both. Next question is from Harry.

Harry wants to know, given Shien’s rapid global expansion, how does the engineering team handle internalization and localization challenges across different markets and languages? So that that that that that’s a fantastic question. Like a lot of it actually predates my my involvement with the company though.

So I can’t really really speak to it. Based ba ba based on any any firshand experience. But if you want to connect with me on on LinkedIn, I may be able to find somebody who can have a conversation with you about that.

All right, next question is from Alex. For back-end cloud or infrared roles, how important is having AI or ML experience? Would having a rag app of some sort be a better signal than say a cred app?

Would not having a IML be a red flag? I so I I I don’t think I like there there is there there aren’t any like like like hard and fast rules in in terms of in terms of what we what we look for. I I I would say that like because of the advances of the last couple of years AI has become so accessible that even if you haven’t done anything with AI before like if you’re a you know really awesome software engineer it’s not too hard for you to to to get your feet wet and and and become productive.

So basically like if you join this team you will be working with AI like even even if it’s not directly on building machine learning algorithms but I wouldn’t say that that that it’s it’s necessary that that that that you you’ve done it before because if you have a strong software engineering background otherwise there’s a a much lower lower barrier to to to entry now like I think it’s you know the last couple years has has really been revolutionary in terms of democratizing AI and making it more accept accessible to anybody who’s willing to put in the elbow grease. Thanks Dan for that answer. Another question from Harry.

Is she in research and dev looking at potential emerging technologies like augmented reality to enhance the shopping experience? So so so I can’t speak to specific future product directions. I I I I will say like if you if you join the company you’d be more than welcome to like our our US president for instance like welcomes anybody to walk into his office with with with ideas like that.

So it’s it’s it like we we we love people who are are are constantly coming up with innovative ideas and the executive team loves to hear them. Thank next question. Are L2 roles appropriate for spring 24 grads with internship experience?

Do you need me to read that one again? With that question, L2, Dan, if you could remind me, what does, that that leveling, refer to? I’m not sure exactly, but like like like I I would say it it’s it’s going to depend on the individual.

So like there there there aren’t really any hard and fast rules for for for what we look for like like we try to to match like each individual applicant profile with the roles that are available at the time. But in in a in our past summer’s internship program, we had like a a pretty wide spectrum of of participants. So so so some folks who were undergrad, like some folks in in graduate programs, some folks who had industry experience who had then gone back into a graduate program.

And they were all awesome like like like basically what what what we look for is folks who we who who we think are going to be, you know, innovative and and and productive as as she enters. And then depending on your experience we can kind of tailor the expectations of of of the internship to your background. And I will say similarly, you know, for positions, if you just have internship experience, you might not have like the years of experience for a position that is non- internship, more of a mid-level position.

You could always apply and I know that you know, that that could be something that you know, you could come come in as the the position might be curtailed a bit you know, for your specific experience. But by no means you know just having internship experience does that limit you you know from pursuing one of our non-inter roles as well. Yeah.

And and I’ll also add like you know even if there’s even if you’re you’re not presently looking or or you know we’re not presently looking definitely connect with us on on on LinkedIn like myself Cam like anybody else you know who works at Sheen because like I know the the the the first thing that I do like when I’m hiring for a new role is I search my own network. So that’s like like I think that’s always the the best place to start. I think that’s really good advice.

Next question is from Latana. What measures has sheen put in place to maintain the sustainability of the improvements from using predictive analytics? Oh, so so so that’s a that that that’s a big topic.

Sustainability of of improvements of the predictive analytics. So so so you mean the the the sustainability of the model improvements and not sustainability as a as as a general topic, right? I would I I I I would say like I I’ve never been in an organization that’s that that that’s more data driven.

So we have a a huge team that’s dedicated to big data engineering and and big data analytics. So everything that happens in a Shien customer’s entire life cycle or a Shien merchants’s entire life cycle is quantified in and and analyzed. So and if anything is off like if if we detect anomalies in you know any part of the process machine learning algorithm or or or otherwise alerts go off and you know people get woken up at at at 3 in the morning to to to to deal with those situations.

So we we we we make an effort to use data and tooling and processes to to to to make sure that we make improvements that that are sustainable. All right, Dan, I’m going to throw another question at you. This is to Daniel from another Daniel.

And he wants to know you mentioned earlier that every software engineer works on AI these days. Are there any unique or innovative ways you’ve leveraged AI in your role? Personally so so so I actually get a lot of assistance from from from AI in day-to-day coding tasks.

So I’m sure all of you all of you have experience with using ChatgPT or you know like GitHub copilot to to get projects started. And and I think I I think that’s awesome. Like obviously like you shouldn’t let the AI finish the project for you but like to kind of bootstrap that first 80%.

I I I do it every day. You know like figuring out the the the the syntax of things or you know sometimes even you know assessing vendor trade-offs and and and technology trade-offs like there’s a lot of knowledge out there that’s that that that that’s been learned by by by some of these large language models. One thing that that that that that I will say is you always have to be careful with your your your data when leveraging AI solutions.

So you know at at at at at at at Shin like like we do use large language models. But for for for the most part we’re using our own private and secure large language models or enterprise licences licenses to language models because it’s very important to us that customer data is you know protect protected and and and doesn’t leak out into the world and you know even during the software development process there’s a danger of that happening. So, so you just have to be very aware and and careful leveraging these tools and and and and for the most part we we’re very careful.

Another thing I I would say is you know, just as a as a personal productivity hack. You know, Perplexity has kind of taken Google’s place as my my default search engine. You know, just for for you know, general stuff that I that that I need to know.

And it’s it’s it’s come a long way. Nice. Next question is, what are some traits of early career talent, SWE or any other tech roles that you prioritize and who have you been proud to add to the team after their work?

That’s an awesome question. I think in in inquisitiveness and and and and open-mindedness are definitely traits trait traits that we look for. I mean just just ju just as an example like I mentioned that we do do do like a a live coding exercise, right?

The there there are folks who kind of implement it to the letter and and and that’s great, right? Like but then there are folks who who who go for the extra credit points, right? Like they you know start writing unit tests or you know they try to make the the the the UI look really nice and like really think about usability or or you know they try try to you know start thinking about application security.

So like like like generally like like like folks who will kind of ask what what’s next and take the next step on on on their own. You know, I personally love those traits and and and I found that just because like this is such a such a new and fastm moving environment that ability to be to independently take the next step and independently find the the the information that that that that you need. As opposed to just kind of waiting for for a spec to be handed to you.

Like that’s really important in in in in this organization like some some in in some larger companies the expectation is you know I just need to you know implement the spec to the letter right like the the that the decisions have been made elsewhere she is a very large organization but we’re not like that at all like like like you’ll find that the the the level of autonomy that’s required and and you know because of the global organization the communication skills that are that that that are required are are more akin to what you might expect in in in an early stage startup. Thank you for that. I know we’re getting close to the end of the session.

This one seems like it might be quick. Jason wants to know, "Since Xien is a Chinese company, would my fluency in Chinese and understanding of the Chinese culture be helpful in collaborating with executives or teams here?" You know, Oh, go ahead. I was going to say it never hurts, but across the board in general, you know, that’s never going to be a requirement.

Certainly, you know, could be leveraged, I’m sure, at some positions more than others, but yeah, Dan, if you wanted to pick up that. Yeah. No, I I was going to say the same thing like like it’s it’s it’s it it’s never hurts is like I like like I think the right word, but day-to-day like like my my team like does business like 100% in English and you know most of our collaboration with with other other US-based teams is 100% English too.

There there there are a lot of kind of legacy documents like in that in Confluence for example that you know maybe in Chinese but like it it’s nothing that that that the Google translate can’t solve and and and and over time a lot of those those older documents are are are kind of being obsoleted anyways and and replaced with new ones that are you know more suitable for for our our international team. All right, thank you both. We are at the end of our session, so I’m going to end the questions there.

Thank you so much to Dan and Cameron for a fantastic presentation. Please thank them in the chat, for taking time out of their evening to talk to us today. And then I believe there will be a feedback survey posted that you all can fill out to give us feedback on the session today.

So, thank you both so much for joining and thank you to everyone for attending. Thanks everyone. Stay tuned for a video from Bobby D.

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