Are coders just working with passion?

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Sketching feature ideas and turning user experience into reality, that's the job of Cốc Cốc Coders, the ones who work with passion. Not only that, the browser you are using to surf the web every day is the product that our “explorers” have been continuously improving and enhancing, making Cốc Cốc more and more worthy of the name "National Browser and Search Engine" - The pride of Vietnamese people.

With Ask a Senior #7, our guest is Mr. Hieu Phan - Desktop Browser Tech Lead, the proud leader of the engineers who make Cốc Cốc Browser. As a "seasoned player" in his profession and at Cốc Cốc, Mr. Hieu has 15-year experience working with C++, including more than 8 years of experience with Chromium and the " Make in Vietnam” Browser.

If you are ready to commit to becoming a professional coder, overcoming challenges like a Cốc Cốc-er, and honing the skills required of a Browser Software Engineer, then you must not miss this sharing by Mr. Hieu!

Is your passion important?

Q: Do you highly praise the “passion” of Software Engineers? And besides "passion", what do they need to be successful?

Everyone needs passion to work at their highest capacity. Only then will there be more positive energy at work. It makes you try harder, overcome more challenges, and make the best quality product. So "passion" is also an important factor for Software Engineers, like me and my teammates.

But besides passion, you still have to need:

Problem-solving skill: To come up with a suitable solution for the problem. “Suitability” may not be the best solution, but it is easy to implement in time and is usable with an acceptable error rate. My teacher in Bach Khoa University had said, "Scientists make simple problems complicated, and engineers make complicated problems simple". This is always applied in our work as an engineer.
Programming skill: To implement solutions into specific lines of code based on the chosen programming language. This skill also includes debugging and fixing programs.
Team-work skill.
Constantly updating new knowledge in the field that you are working in.

And a little of my advice is that you also need to learn based on the spirit: Persevere what you have chosen and try to master it.

Master a text editor
Master a programming language
Master a compiler/debugger

Q: In your opinion, is being a Software Engineer "boring" and the pursuers of this profession only know to focus on coding?

There is a lot of cool things in this profession, and not even a little bit boring - If you don’t believe me, you can try this Link 1 and Link 2 :D Writing code sometimes is just only a small part, and most of your time is spent figuring out how to solve the problem and how to implement it. Finding and fixing bugs also takes up a lot of programmer time and its art. In funny way, “Write code for a minute but debug for a day”. Not everyone can debug quickly and accurately ;)

Mr. Hieu is so focus on his work

Browser Software Engineer - Challenges and opportunities at Cốc Cốc

Q: At Cốc Cốc, what challenges might be for the Software Engineer at Desktop Browser team?

The first challenge is working with a large amount of code (more than 25 million lines of code), it is easy to get "lost" when reading.
The second challenge is that besides C++, you’ll need to know more about python and the other trio: HTML, CSS, and Javascript.
Another challenge is C++, the main language. C++ is a powerful language, but it's also quite difficult to master. Bjarne Stroustrup - the creator of C++ once said:

"C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot; C++ makes it harder, but when you do it blows your whole leg off"

With modern C++ (C++11, 14, 17, 21), it has many features, has new libraries added, so it takes a lot of time to update this new knowledge, to choose which feature to use, or use this library or not.

Q: Conquering challenges, and what are the potential opportunities for your Software Engineer team? How promising will those opportunities be?

I can point out three things:

The first is to complete and develop the skill set required for programmers. If you work for my team and have your successes, then wherever you go, you can create your values.
Secondly, you always have access to new technologies and interact with high-quality code from the world's top programmers. This will help you quickly develop your coding skills, ensuring quality for every line written.
Finally, Cốc Cốc has a clear career path, set for programmers from Junior to Expert level. You will always know what to do, what to equip, and then progress to higher milestones in your career. At my team in particular and at Cốc Cốc, you don't need to worry about getting "lost" :D

Mr. Hieu is happily sharing about the opportunities at Cốc Cốc

Because Browser is the gateway for users to enter the Internet world, it’s Cốc Cốc's mission to bring a convenient and safe browsing experience to all users across Vietnam. This is not an easy challenge but on the contrary, it is extremely interesting. Therefore, I and my colleagues here must share that: "The feeling that my product is used by millions of people every day, it feels so fantastic and proud."

If you dream to become a Software Engineer like us, then I hope that you will gradually achieve your goals, and success will soon come if you know how to persevere in learning!

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Ask a Senior - The series Cốc Cốc “Seniors” share their expertise and direction of career development for youngsters, helping them to have more inspiration to build the career path up ahead.