Working at VMware
Ramble before the body— Every cloud has a silver lining
I thought this summer would be aimless and bleak after the pandemic broke out and my second-round interview at SDL was canceled. I was depressed for a short time but quickly bucked up and take the challenges as opportunities. In order to make my life busy and meaningful instead of complaining and whining about fate and society, I spent most of my time focusing on my in-class projects and assignments at MIIS, such as the NMT training project in which we finally achieved 51.71 in BLEU score. I also tried to keep calm and hone the technical skills that I used to lack, and I spared no effort in getting full grades with extra credits in every quiz and assignment at Python, JavaScript, and Website localization courses. Luckily, my endeavor paid off. I was fortunate to get my internship at VMware as a localization project manager in the mid of May.
What Does An LPM Do?
As a localization project manager at the client-side, my job is to bring localized products to the global audience before the general availability date and realize SimShip based on the agile development cycle and SaaS model. Initially, I need to plan, kick-off, execute, publish technical documentation and UI localization projects, and ensure they are released before the GA date. Currently, I’m managing 6 on-going projects simultaneously, and all of them are being updated and published periodically according to the process from upstream, such as technical writers, product managers, and the development team.
Besides, I am also assisting my mentor who is a technical LPM in bug triage and resolving the issues reported by the customers and other stakeholders, and then follow up on the UI and doc updates. Normally, I can fix the documentation bugs that are under tier 3, but my wits end there when the issues become trickier. Moreover, I help develop the LPM guidelines and other professional skill guidelines on our internal information-sharing platform in order to promote understanding among each other about different projects, initiatives as well as useful knowledge on skill improvement.
Something Special
I was asked to record an introduction video about our product localization team for our customers who attended the VMworld this year. VMworld is the announcement of our new products and services, and this year it was held in Beijing, although virtually. Therefore, the main language that I used was Mandarin and Simplified Chinese. My colleagues also localized it into English and Japanese versions for other BUs and global customers. Pardon me for not sharing this video with you due to confidentiality. Besides, the light was from the ceiling, so I looked like an aged ghost.
Challenge
One of the toughest challenges for me during the internship was the poster session which required every summer intern to do a presentation and a poster about what they achieved at VMware. The poster session was in early August while I joined the team at the end of July, which gave me only two weeks to prepare. My topic was our update on neural machine translation. We launched an initiative and applied another machine learning model, which helped us to save more money and increase efficiency for future localization projects. I experienced intense training on what was going on in this project with the guidance of my supportive colleagues, but I still needed to stay up late to keep up with the pace, optimize my poster, and practice my speech. However, as a Chinese, being diligent is my natural instinct. I finished the poster session successfully and won praise from my director.
Insights
After being a real LPM, I started to reflect on the differences between the knowledge that I gained at school and the facts in the workplace. I would like to compare the process that we develop our career path to the journey of Interstellar. Learning LPM, CAT tools, TMS, CMS, and Programming languages at school is like building the Cooper space station which allows humans to live in space. We’ve known how to use tools, and we’ve run through the whole localization process, which are the most important things that we must possess when facing real projects. However, managing real projects is like building the camps in Edmunds. We have the tools and resources in place, and we know normally what to do, but the issues that sometimes show up are unprecedented. This really requires us to develop our problem-solving capability. For example, a bug that waiting for you to fix may be something that your mentor has never seen before, and you need to get familiar with the product feature first and be aware of the end-users’ demand and then figure out what puzzles the customer and what can improve the user experience. Also, keep learning, and keep up with the new technology and trend. The industry is changing fast, and no one can rest on their past gains.
