From a student who was passionate about Artificial Intelligence (AI), after 5 years of working at VNG, Ngoan Pham (Lead AI Engineer, VNG Digital Business) has become a highly qualified member, joining many different AI projects. Despite the obstacles that arise here and there when working in this domain of technology, Ngoan has enjoyed his development of VNG over the past journey. “Every working day at VNG is a journey of continuous learning, accumulating 1% of growth for myself” - Ngoan reveals.

 

 

Q: Can you relate some memorable moments of your journey at VNG?

I learned about VNG from the introduction of my friends and looked for opportunities to join the company when I was a fourth-year student. Since becoming a Starter, I have accompanied teams that specialize in developing AI products related to data, serving the business segments in the company, then continuing to develop other independent AI solutions of VNG and achieving certain successes. 

 

One of the projects that I am proud of is the product that recognizes real people from single images #trueID - the first unit in Southeast Asia to achieve the US standard ISO/IEC 30107-3 certification with the static model at the end of 2022. Currently, my teammates and I are “fighting” in projects related to Generative AI - a new trend that is of interest.

 

Going through 5 years of working at VNG has helped me learn and develop more in the field that I was passionate about when I was a student. By accompanying VNG in the journey of creating advanced and useful products and applications, I was able to achieve the goal that I set for myself: to bring comprehensive AI solutions to businesses, and provide end users with positive technology experiences.

 

Q: What are the frequent challenges of an AI project and how can you and your team cope with them?

In AI projects, my team often faces two major issues: the data quality of the input for the algorithm/model and the scalability of the product.

 

For the first issue, the question that is often asked us is how to make the algorithm and machine learning model perform well and efficiently, which requires the team to always have a method to ensure high accuracy and enrich the data source to have quality data for the models.

 

The second challenge is how to make the product meet many concurrent users but with the lowest latency. To unlock this question, the whole team has to try many solutions, both using the available ones and developing our own, from which we can draw our methods to handle similar problems.

 

Therefore, I realize that self-learning and self-research skills are the most important factors that a technology engineer needs to have when doing AI projects in particular or technology in general. We have to learn and absorb quickly to keep up with the development and update speed of the technology world and be responsive to handle any difficulties that may arise.

Q: As a Starter, what are you most proud of when working at VNG?

The thing that I am most proud of when becoming a Starter is to experience a working environment that values creativity and collaboration. VNG also takes special care of its members' physical and mental health. 

Especially, this is also where I met my brothers, my teammates who are ready to support me to complete the work and the mentors who are insightful and help me to orient myself better. “Apply the rule of achieving 1% of progress every day to help yourself develop faster” is the advice that a mentor once gave me, which gives me more motivation every day to face data, problems, and code. After a day of working hard, we will all accumulate 1% of development in our abilities, knowledge, and skills, until a point, we accumulate enough experience to unlock a better version of ourselves.

I think this rule will continue to be my guide in the next journey, and I also hope it will help anyone who reads this article to have more motivation in any work that you are doing and the career that you are pursuing.

 

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