The best advice, retro game consoles & triathlons: Meet Vincent Chong

Cycling2

Discover the story of one of our team members. This time we are meeting Vincent Chong, Senior Back-End Developer at ReMark, from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Vincent joined earlier this year and speaks about changing lives through technology, building retro game consoles, and doing triathlons.

  • Swim training
  • Cycling with daughter

Vincent, you have joined ReMark quite recently, what did you do before? And what do you do now at ReMark?  

18 years ago, I quit my electronic engineering job and I stuck to programming/web development ever since. At ReMark, I’m working as a Senior Back-End Developer on the GoodLife app.

How has your experience been at ReMark so far? What have you already learned?

So far, everything is great! Colleagues are friendly and enthusiastic. I am even learning a new programming language/framework that is called Ruby on Rails, which I enjoy very much. To build things that can improve/impact/change lives, and also be able to learn new skills/tools along the way really motivates me. 

In your opinion, what is the most exciting development in technology? 

IoT (Internet of Things) & automation. IoT allows us to interact with humans, while A.I.-driven automation eases the burden and helps reduce human errors.

  • Triathlon At the finish line of an Ironman race 3 8km swim 180km ride and 42km run took me 16 hours 53 minutes and 55 seconds
  • R Pi built a live bird watching device2
  • Family after a running race

What’s your favorite thing to do when you have some free time?  

First, Raspberry Pi: It is a tiny single-board computer that allows me to do lots of creative and fun stuff. I used it to build some retro game consoles, tablets, and audiophile music players. Once, I even used it as a workstation.

Then, I do triathlons: I swim, I bike, I run, I sleep and I repeat. That’s how I feel happy and healthy!

I also love classical music. I like to attend live concerts and during the pandemic, I could only listen to my CD collections.

What did you want to become when you were little?

Anything related to cinema. Usher, box office cashier, popcorn seller, as long as I could sneak into the cinema hall and watch the movies. I just loved watching movies! I was always amazed by the stories that the silver screen could tell.

Finally, what is the best advice that you’ve ever received? 

It was from my triathlon coach: consistency is king. Set the tasks, force yourself to do them consistently, and make them a habit until habits become second nature!