Yi Chen Chong

I grew up in a diverse international background, and consequently, developed a wide variety of interests. I'm a huge tech enthusiast, and I love to solve problems and code (and especially both at once). My tech interests range from data science to full-stack development, and I also engage in engineering, design, and business.

I'm an incredibly fast hands-on learner, with a penchant for picking up new skills. If you want someone who has great test-taking and right-answer-regurgitation abilities, that's not me. However, if you want someone who can take projects and execute on them or who can generate creative solutions to issues, I'm your man.

I'm always looking for new opportunities to extend and use my skills, so if my background sounds like a good fit for you, contact me and let me know!

Education

Imperial College London

MEng Mathematics and Computer Science

2021 - 2025

+

This duodisciplinary degree, hosted under the Department of Computing, but taught jointly with the Department of Mathematics is accredited by the British Computing Society. In my studies, I attend modules under both the pure computing and pure mathematics syllabus. The degree is 4 years, culminating directly in an MEng degree. For more information, click here for the course website.

Achievements

Top 20 C Group Projects in Computing Practical 1

Modules studied or to be studied

First Year

Computing
- Logic & Reasoning
- Graphs & Algorithms
- Computing Practical 1
Mathematics
- Introduction to University Mathematics
- Analysis 1
- Calculus & Applications
- Linear Algebra & Groups
Extracurricular
- Securities Education Certificate
- Introduction to Philosophy

Second year

Computing
- Operating Systems
- Software Engineering Design
- Computing Practical 2
- Algorithms Design and Analysis
- Compilers (Audited)
- Symbolic Reasoning (Audited)
- Networks and Communications (Extracurricular)
- Designing for Real People
Mathematics
- Probability & Statistics
- Analysis 2: Real Analysis & Topology, and Complex Analysis
- Multivariate Calculus
- Numerical Analysis
- Statistical Modelling 1

Societies and Activities

Google Developer Student Club
Robotics Society
Department of Computing Society
Data Science Society
Muay Thai Society
Singapore Society

Shanghai American School

US High School Diploma

2015 - 2019

+

I studied in Shanghai American School, Puxi Campus, under the US Advanced Placement (AP) program. Over the course of my 4 years, I achieved a GPA of 3.70/4.00, and completed 10 Advanced Placement exams. In my first two years of high school, I also completed Innovation Institute, an interdisciplinary project-based learning program, which was named by HundrED.org as one of the top 100 global education innovations in 2019.

Achievements

Scored a 5/5 on 7 of my 10 AP Exams
Scored a 35/36 on my ACT (equivalent to 1560/1600 on the SAT)
Scored 800/800 on SAT Subject Tests for Physics and Mathematics Level 2, as well as 790/800 in SAT Subject Tests Chemistry
Achieved a 3.7/4.0 GPA
Earned the AP Capstone Diploma and AP Scholar with Distinction Award
Engineering Lead for a project that constructed a fully functional e-payment vending machine for the Student Union
Achieved an Excellence Award at the Sichuan Regional for the Intel Science and Engineering Fair for work related to quaternary encoding for the purposes of DNA Digital Data Storage.

Relevant modules/courses studied:

Innovation Institute
AP Calculus BC
AP Computer Science A
AP Statistics
AP Physics 1
AP Physics C: Mechanics
AP Physics C: Electricity & Magnetism
AP Chemistry
AP Research

Societies and Activities

Robotics (FTC Programming Mentor / FRC Initiative Lead)
Vending Machine Committee (Engineering Lead)
Intel Science and Engineering Fair (Regional Fair Excellence Award Winner)
Junior Varsity Cross Country (2019 MVP)

Experience

Site Reliability Engineer Intern

Cisco (Duo Security)

Jul - Sep 2023

+

Duo Security is a cloud-based access security provider protecting the world's largest and fastest-growing companies and organizations. I worked as a Site Reliability Engineer Intern in the Duo Security team at Cisco, where I worked on several projects to improve the SRE workflow, and learned a lot about Site Reliability Engineering tools, culture, and life.

Achievements

Brainstormed and implemented several several solutions to version Terraform modules in a monorepository
- Designed and created a custom Terraform module registry using AWS (Route 53, API Gateway, Lambda, DynamoDB, etc.) and Golang
- Unblocked team outcome in allowing for infrastructure code to be versioned easier
Built a Svelte Chrome extension to allow for engineers to easily access internal tools
- Increased efficiency of engineers by integrating an omnibox search for common queries
- Decreased new hire ramp-up time by implementing shareable new tab page presets and bookmarks
- Used by 25% of Duo Security Site Reliability Engineers within first two weeks

Key Responsibilities

Analysing and developing solutions to the module versioning problem in Terraform
Participating in outage and incident analysis and management
Developing and contributing to internal software development projects

Technical Skills

AWS Cloud Engineering (Route 53, API Gateway, Lambda, DynamoDB, etc.)
Infrastructure as Code (Terraform)
Software Development (Golang, Svelte, Python)
CI/CD (GitLab CI, GitHub Actions)
Containerization (Docker, Kubernetes)
Monitoring (Grafana, Kibana)
Software Architecture

Software Test Engineer Intern

ByteDance (Bytehouse Data Platform)

Jul - Sep 2022

+

ByteDance is one of the fastest-growing tech companies on the market, and ByteHouse is their newest foray into data warehousing and Platform-as-a-Service products. I supported quality assurance and software test engineering operations by conducting manual and automated functional, performance, and security testing of both UI components and RESTful APIs at ByteHouse, and collaborated closely with developers, designers, product managers, DevOps teams, and other test engineers to identify, manage, and resolve defects in an Agile framework.

Achievements

Oversaw the manual and automated functional and performance testing of over 20 different API endpoints
- Decreased the number of defects and issues in production directly through documentation and reporting of bugs
Introduced and working on critical improvements to in-house functional testing framework
- Decreased functional redundancy between test engineers
- Reduced setup time
- Created new features to enable enhanced test coverage and CI/CD integration
- Created toolkits to enable faster test automation
Completed the Backend Engineer (Golang) course

Key Responsibilities

Analysing software key requirements
Developing new test automation frameworks, tools, features, and suites, and leveraging existing ones
Designing and executing test cases manually and with automation, following testing standards
Identifying, managing, and assessing product defects
Consolidating and reporting test results, and advising stakeholders on risk

Technical Skills

Software test design and execution
RESTful API usage and testing (Swagger, Postman, etc.)
Test framework development (in-house framework built on top of PyTest)
Performance Testing with Python Locust
CI/CD pipelines
Professional project management and collaboration tooling (Jira, Git, etc.)

Sergeant (3SG), Combat Engineer

Singapore Armed Forces

2019 - 2021

+

As part of my National Service, I was enlisted into the Singaporean military, where I served as a sergeant in the combat engineers. I oversaw a section of 5 men in combat, peacetime, and administrative duties.

Achievements

Upon completion of Basic Military Training, selected to and completed Specialist Cadet School (SCS), a military leadership institute where I trained to become a non-commissioned officer
Received further training, such as the Armskote Management Course
Earned 3 badges during my service
- Individual Physical Proficiency Test (IPPT) Gold
- Advanced Trainfire Package (ATP) Marksman
- Basic Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD)

Key Responsibilities

Operated and maintained heavy equipment for combat fortification and construction
Participated in both demolition and ordnance disposal exercises
Developed training and tactic doctrine materials
Oversaw training and evaluation of soldiers in combat engineer taskings
Managed the administration and welfare of soldiers
Led soldiers in peacetime operational roles (i.e. protecting national parades, camp guard duties, etc.)
Carried out logistic duties, such as the management of the armskote (company armoury)

Certification

Securities Education Certificate

Imperial College Investment Society

Jan 2022

+

Credential ID: ICISSEC21220145 Mark: Pass with Distinction
The SEC is the Imperial College Investment Society's flagship lecture course. Delivered by Imperial alumni who now work in finance, the course covers topics ranging from Sales and Trading to Private Equity and Quantitative Analysis. The course featured four 3-hour lectures, culminating in a written examination at the end of the course. Achievements The 2021-2022 cohort included over 169 students. The mean score on the exam was 64.1%, the median was 63.3%, and the highest mark attained was 83.3%. I scored 80% on the exam, putting me in second place, and well into a Pass with Distinction.

MicroBachelors Program in Computer Science Fundamentals

NYU via edX

Dec 2020

+

Credential ID: 1533602232e640eeafc06f33a4bd0ba9 Marks:

Basics of Computing and Programming: 100%
Introduction to Networking: 100%
Computer Hardware and Operating Systems: 88%

The Computer Science Fundamentals MicroBachelors Program, in three modules, covers fundamental knowledge of computer hardware and operating systems, modern operating system structure, computational thinking, network protocols, architectures, and applications, and Python programming. All three modules are examined and proctored online.

Testimonials

I'm a strong team player who takes initiative and I'm known for my communication, helpfulness, dedication, and patience.
But don't just take it from me - here is what others have had to say about my work:

Excerpts from Fang Wu, my manager from ByteDance (also on my LinkedIn page):

Yi Chen is a passionate and talented intern worked with us in ByteDance Singapore office during summer of 2022. He's a fast learner with self-driven personality, which makes the onboarding and knowledge ramp up super easy and fast. Yi Chen not only worked on manual testing, but quickly got the gist of automation framework. He had contributed a lot on test automation and automation framework enhancement during his internship. It's impressive that he always thinks about how to improve work efficiency and implement accordingly. He never hesitate to help others, or taking up any tasks. It's a great pleasure working with him and hope we could have opportunities working together again in future!

Excerpts from my National Service Commander's Appraisal and Testimonial:

"3SG CHONG was an approachable and capable leader who displayed commendable characteristics such as perseverance and helpfulness. His willingness to communicate openly and provide constructive feedback had earned him the respect of both his superiors and soldiers ... He was passionate in nurturing his soldiers, which ultimately led to his section achieving excellent results during their first year evaluation."

"3SG CHONG was responsible for training and leading his soldiers and junior commanders. He was observed to have spent additional hours outside training to coach his soldiers personally if they faced difficulties during training. He had notably coached one of his soldiers prior to a live firing exercise, with the intention of ensuring that the soldier could execute his drills safely. He had been a valued member of his team, providing valuable knowledge and experience. He was known to be a helpful and approachable commander, always open to providing clarifications to those around him ... In summary, 3SG CHONG has performed well during his service and had displayed commendable spirit as a leader. He was knowledgeable, helpful and was a team player. We are confident that with his capabilities, 3SG CHONG will be a valuable asset to any organisation he joins in the future."

Comments from students on Upchieve , a volunteer tutoring platform I work with:

Extremely kind and relatable, easy to work with and was politely honest" - G.

My coach was awesome! Super helpful and patient--loved working together!" - A.

Skills

Select any skill to view my projects involving it: