How Thanh Trung Nguyen went from developer to tech lead in one of Zühlke’s most rapidly-growing offices

At Zühlke Vietnam, rather than outsourcing or developing our own products, employees work with customers directly and contribute to their projects across the whole software development lifecycle. Our software teams in Vietnam combine agile methodologies with human-centric design principles to engineer high-performance, intuitive, resource-efficient applications and integrations, together with Zühlke teams and customers all over the globe.

Thanh Trung Nguyen, one of Zühlke Vietnam’s very first employees, has gone from developer to tech lead, taking on a wide range of responsibility in a short space of time. Over one year, Trung has seen the Vietnam office grow from just five people to 30, with more talent joining all the time. But what makes it special as a place to work?

Located in Ho Chi Minh City, Zühlke Vietnam is a buzzing digital hub, where employees plan and develop solutions for companies all around the world. It’s also becoming one of Asia’s most vibrant destinations, with a growing tech movement that will help drive new innovation. “People are very open here and willing to share their knowledge,” Trung explains. It’s this inclusivity that’s helped as he’s moved into different roles and progressed through the organization.

From developer to tech lead

“I joined as a Java full stack developer, and after onboarding my Line Manager entrusted me with a digital banking project, where I then became a technical lead.” Working with the customer service department, Trung was part of a team that built a product that connected customers and their call centers. Working on a challenging project for a few months gave Trung the chance to show his capabilities as a tech lead, working with the account teams to ensure projects run smoothly. “It’s helping me consolidate my skills and learn new technologies,” he said.

This experience has necessitated skills that strengthened Trung’s interpersonal skills on top of his technical knowledge. As well as working on technical requirements and feature development for his projects, he ensured the successful delivery of projects for his whole department, as well as collecting project-related feedback from his team. “It also means supporting people if they face any challenges,” Trung says. “This means a huge amount of variety in addition to development and engineering and account strategy work. It keeps things interesting.”

In the thick of it

The best part of working at Zühlke Vietnam is working with established, global customers as part of a diverse team, Trung says. “We have people in various roles from software engineers, agile coaches, business analysts and project managers from Singapore, Europe and Australia working together on projects,” he underlines. “And our customers are nice and supportive, which leads to a pleasant and appreciative atmosphere and that helps a lot when you’re developing applications together with them.”

Trung explains that his latest project also offered him taking on more of a consultative role. “In a traditional outsourcing role, you might just develop the software application and get user acceptance and then that’s it,” he says. “But that’s not what do at Zühlke. For this project, I joined during the launch phase, which meant pre-preparation and solving different challenges when the product went to market.”

Trung explains that getting involved directly with customers is a gratifying part of the role. “For one of my current customers in Singapore, I get to work directly with the CTO. He has a very hands-on approach that sets us up for success.” When it comes to leading on projects and solving problems, being closely involved with his customers has helped Trung develop his skills and execute new solutions with ease. This, too, is a further difference to the work at outsourcing or product providers, where as a software engineer there is not normally such a close exchange with the customer.

Capturing the Zühlke culture

Even though Trung joined Zühlke during the pandemic, he said there was still a big focus on getting to know people online. “After onboarding, we tried to sync up daily and during the pandemic we organized online social events.” When restrictions were eased and people could meet, the office was also growing. “We celebrated the launch of our new, bigger office and had team building events, including football and swimming.”

This culture is what makes Zühlke a great place to work, Trung says, but it was also the new challenge of using his skills in digital banking that attracted him to the company. “I like the technical challenge of understanding how different sectors operate, including digital banking, healthcare and logistics,” he says. But working in this space isn’t easy. “You have to be able to work both independently and with lots of different people across different roles and countries.”

What’s the best way to approach this challenge? “Get to know the people you work with — who they are and what they do. It helps to know who to talk to when you have any issues, especially when you can’t always meet them in person. When it comes to this role, communication skills are critical.”

Did you find Trung's story exciting and want to follow his footsteps? We are looking for Software Engineers like Trung for our Vietnam office, who like to solve technical challenges and communicate with our teams and customers.