BEHIND THE SCENES OF NEBULA TOGETHER DEVELOPMENT - Haisiang Wong

TARA

How long have you been at Zyxel? How has your career grown since starting with the company?  

I have been with Zyxel since 2012 and started as a Technical Support Engineer in the WiFi solution team. Now, I am a Security Application Engineer in Nebula’s team.  

 

Tell us about your role within Zyxel. 

In the early years, I was in charge of providing guidance to customers to build out on-premises firewall and gateway solutions for their network infrastructure and working with the sales team to meet client’s expectations, but I wasn’t finding it very satisfying. Then I moved into a Security Application Engineer role to design and implement applications changes in Nebula firewall and gateway solutions.  

  

What do you enjoy most about your role?  

I enjoy expanding my technical knowledge for design and optimization of the applications to implement security solutions effortlessly. I even built up a field-try environment in my house to understand our customer needs better. Although the work may be difficult, tiring, and stressful, with multiple systems and sites to keep track of, I feel proud of the accomplishments, challenged by the raised goals and expectations. 

What’s something you’ve done during your time in Zyxel that you’re proud of? 

I am so proud of being at a company that is continually transforming and innovating. — and recently we did just that with the VPN Orchestrator (VPN Member), which is a powerful tool that allows you to manage and set up VPN connections. This idea came from when I managed multi-site VPN connections in my house, and I realized it is cumbersome to manage VPN connections in multi-sites in my place. I had to manage each VPN connection one by one; it’s not complicated but takes time. Then I started to think about how to effortlessly manage batch VPN connections. When it is implemented, I felt enormously proud of the achievement I made. 

 

What projects are you currently excited about? 

I am excited to share the new patch of ATP and USG FLEX Firewalls joining Nebula to deliver superior protection against 0-day and endpoint attacks as hybrid working becomes the normal. We did a lot of work evaluating the best security features for SMBs and MSPs in an off-premise environment, then redesigned and improved the features to let customers to easily and quickly implement security solutions in Nebula even without an IT department.  

Change is constant in network industries. To keep up with changes in technology, continuously learning can be stimulating and motivating. I am glad to participate in PON project, which is a brand-new technical knowledge to me to work with the other team members to create and troubleshoot the new flow process. It may increase workload and stress but it gives me a feeling of accomplishment and some pride. 

Given your experience, what advice would you give to someone considering a career in Application Engineer?  

Be customer-focus in designing of new features and implementation flow. Develop communication skills to improve cross-team collaboration.

 

What do you like to do outside the office?  

Veg out in front of the TV and wine tasting. I used to obsess with whisky tasting, but now I am obsessed with wine tasting recently! Comparing the taste difference between before and after decanting and coating my mouth to find more flavors is quite interesting!   

 

Do you have any secret talents?  

 I used to play Chinese Bamboo Flute until I graduated high school. My special talent is cooking with various types of spices and from South Asian ingredients. 

 

What would you do (for a career) if you weren’t doing this?  

After living abroad for 13 years, I know too well what I miss the most from home in Malaysia: the food. To have a certain degree of creativity and good ingredients hit all my buttons. I’d love the chance to open up an authentic Malaysian restaurant because it is hard to find authentic Malaysian food restaurants in Taiwan.