Kang Desheng | The thicker your skin, the stronger your ability

Kang Desheng previously served as the global senior technical director of market risk and liquidity risk of the British Standard Chartered Group, the overseas specially appointed financial market business structure expert of the ICBC Head Office, the senior development manager of the investment portfolio and risk management of Fannie Mae in the United States, and several domestic software companies. CTO and other positions. Over 20 years of experience in software development and management, 15 of which have been focused on FinTech.

In everyone's eyes, Kang Desheng is a standard academic master. He holds a master's degree in computer science from Zhejiang University, an MBA in finance from the University of Maryland, a CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst) and an FRM (Financial Risk Manager) in finance. Field professional certification. Having worked hard in the field of financial technology for many years, he has profound knowledge in financial business fields such as complex financial product transactions, as well as technical fields such as computer languages.

Started his programming career by learning and writing

But when asked about his initial dream, he laughed and said that his original dream was to make robots. “When I was a child, I often read science fiction novels and felt that robots must be Very powerful, I want to rule the future world."

In the 1990s, manufacturing robots was a particularly futuristic dream. Even if Kang Desheng chose a mechanical design major related to robots, he had no chance to practice it in college, which prevented him from enjoying the benefits of learning. So that it can be used freely. So in his sophomore year, he used his foundation of writing Basic code in high school to find a software start-up company and officially started his programming career.

Although there is a certain foundation, making a software is not easy, and software companies at that time did not have a clear division of labor like they do now, with specialized products, R&D, design, testing, operation and maintenance, etc. The team basically has to do everything themselves. In current terms, every programmer is a full-stack engineer.

Since his undergraduate major was not computer science, and he had to write everything by himself, Kang Desheng could only read a lot of books to make up for his lack of knowledge system, and read the source code to understand the operating mechanism behind the program. , and sometimes they will take other people’s products and decompile them, so as to learn the ideas and structures of other people’s software products. Just learning and writing at the same time, after spending a lot of effort, he finally created his first software product, an English education system.

In Kang Desheng’s view, if you want to quickly improve your programming skills, the most important thing is to have self-motivation, be willing to take the initiative to learn, and be willing to spend time on unknown things. For example, in order to make this educational software, he specially developed a Chinese-like imitation Windows platform under the DOS platform, such as windows, buttons, menus, drop-down list boxes, BMP graphics, Chinese character display...even the mouse and graphics card. The drivers are all made by him using assembly language and learning them now.

Why is it said that the thicker the skin, the stronger the ability?

With his love for technology and strong self-drive, Kang Desheng grew rapidly after graduation and led the team to develop several software products.

One day in 2000, he spent 50 yuan to listen to a lecture at the Hangzhou World Trade Center. On the stage was a small, strange-looking man named Jack Ma, who had just received 20 million US dollars from Masayoshi Son. . Ma Yun's speech ignited everyone in the venue, and Kang Desheng was also one of the audience members who was filled with excitement. After listening to the speech, he became very curious about the Internet technology in the United States, so he gave up his CTO position in a domestic company and went to the United States to restart his career as a "code farmer".

For Kang Desheng, writing code is not difficult. Even if he goes to the United States to apply a new programming language again, he can quickly learn and master it. What really worries him is the language challenge. In the past, in China, he had to manage a team, take care of products and even sales, and developed strong communication skills. But now, his broken English makes it difficult for him to use all his skills and express his thoughts freely. No matter how capable he is, it is difficult to get recognition from others if he cannot express clearly.

So, he began to calm down and forced himself to improve his English communication skills. For a period of time, he had to speak English cracklingly every day. Later, he gradually discovered that language was not a big problem anymore. When looking back on that experience, Kang Desheng lamented that the key was to "have a thick skin" and keep talking.

For example, when he was studying for an MBA in finance at the University of Maryland, in order to practice his English speaking skills while studying, he often spoke enthusiastically in class. Once he asked the teacher a question in English. After the question, the whole classroom was silent, and no one could understand what he was saying. At this time, his face turned red and he was very embarrassed, but he still forced himself to be shameless and explain in English what he said.

In Kang Desheng’s view, the four words “thick-skinned” are not only applicable to improving English speaking skills, but also to improving Chinese communication skills. For technical people who want to improve their communication skills, "the more you are on stage, the thicker your skin will be, the stronger your abilities will be." Some technical people are not used to giving speeches in public. Even if they muster the courage to go on stage once, they find that they are extremely nervous and the effect is not good, and they will not share again in the future. But if you are willing to push yourself once, twice, or three times, you will slowly find that public speaking is not difficult.

"Programming is to do the most things with the least code"

When Kang Desheng's English, business expertise and technology became no problem, he began to seek new challenges. In 2010, he returned to China and became a specially appointed overseas financial market business structure expert at the head office of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China. He later served as the global senior technical director of market risk and liquidity risk at the British Standard Chartered Group, and currently serves as the CTO of Zhongan Insurance.

In these years of work, Kang Desheng has always been dealing with code. Even when he reached the CTO position, he did not leave the front line and could still write and read code. The accumulation over the years has also given him a deeper understanding of programming.

When he was a student, when he first came into contact with programming, he felt that programming was about algorithms, and that he used computers to solve problems. At that time, he was thinking more about local issues and relatively micro things. Now, he is thinking more about things at the macro level, such as what should be done at the architectural level in addition to specific algorithms.

In his opinion, in many cases it does not mean that the more code you write, the better. On the contrary, the less code you write, the better. "You use the least code to do the most things. In fact, you have to put a lot of requirements on your design. For example, if you have 10 business requirements, the common situation may be that you need to write 10 programs to realize these requirements. But if After you think about the relationship between these modules and abstract the logic behind it, you can achieve these needs through a program."

Kang Desheng believes that when an excellent technical person thinks about problems , is not limited to a specific problem, but puts many problems together, uses abstraction capabilities to find essential problems, and can solve multiple complex problems with exquisite code.

4 job search suggestions for fresh graduates

Finally, Kang Desheng also combined his years of experience as an interviewer to share 4 job search suggestions for the majority of technical graduates:

1. You must have your own works. For example, make a small App, write a small program, etc. Works are the best weapon to show your ability. It is best to have a few good works when you are a student. In addition, you can also participate in more technical competitions and prove your programming abilities through some certificates.
2. Go to more interviews and answer more questions. The more interviews you participate in, the more clearly you can express what you know. When your interview experience accumulates to a certain level, you will become more and more confident. In addition, you can also answer more questions. If you answer questions very quickly during the interview, the interviewer will also be impressed by you.
3. Improve your mental temperament and behave positively. A good mental temperament will give the interviewer a good feeling, and the other party will also have a better impression of you.
4. Understand the business value of the company you are applying for. Technology is more about serving the business. If you can have a deeper understanding of a company's business before interviewing, it will not only help you find the future development direction, but also leave a good impression on the interviewer. impression.

Let’s stop here today about Kang Desheng’s technical growth story and his thoughts on programming. I hope that today’s article can inspire you, set a goal for yourself, and become better self.

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