Owning the first and core elements of Pixta Vietnam, the Research and Development Department (R&D) was established in 2016, starting with a small group of technical engineers who desire to challenge themselves with a brand new product in the Vietnam IT market- Pixtastock. After 4 years, following the product's growth momentum, the number of R&D members has increased to nearly 30 people (accounting for about half of the number of employees in Vietnam Office) who directly deliver positive changes to the product day by day.
Pixta Vietnam's R&D department is divided into small teams of 3 to 5 members and follow the Scrum model:
- Customer Team: develop payment functions, checkout, payment methods integration
- Contributor Team: develop uploading and material submitting functions, FTP server.
- Search Team: develop search and ranking features
- Item Flow Team: build and develop material processing systems
- Architect Team: research and apply new technologies to improve the system towards the highest efficiency.
- Infra Team: ensure the stability of the infrastructure system and the availability of the development environment for engineers.
- Lab Team: research and apply machine learning, deep learning, computer vision….
YOUNG AGE ON AVERAGE
Most of R&D department members are from 24 to 29 years old and the youngest member who is currently working in the Lab team, Do Thanh Lam - a student at Computer Science Faculty from Hanoi University of Science and Technology just turns 21. Yearly, the R&D department welcomes many potential students from well-known universities coming for training and participating in hands-on projects. Despite their young age, like other official members at PIXTA Vietnam, all trainees work with the highest spirit of learning and dedication.
CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT AND CAN-DO SPIRIT
Providing a great user experience is an important factor leading to the success of a technology platform. Good products require constant updates with innovation and adaptation not only to the requirements of the market but also to the rapid pace of technology changes. Understanding that, R&D department members always try to improve the functions and the operation of the system. Some outstanding improvement projects could be named are:
- Proximus (Reverse Image Search): As the growth of user demand and the concept of the photos also becomes more abstract and complex to be described in words, the feature that allows users to search related results based on the content of an original image is a really useful tool to solve the problem. The project was honored to receive the Komota Award as well as marked a huge technological advance of PIXTA in 2019.
- Mobile Uploader: PWA application using React and Ant Design allow the contributors to manage the uploading and submitting images directly from their phone.
- Photo Flow Manager: A new microservice that separates from the core system, simplifies and specializes in the management of the image processing process from upload until on sale on Pixta Stock. This helps to reduce time, cost of operation, increase stability as well as scalability of the system.
All the above projects have been completed and have brought certain contributions to user experience improvement as well as support Pixta's system to operate more stably.
WORKING OVER EXPECTATION ATTEMPT
Self Learning - is one of 6 core values of PIXTA Vietnam. Each individual should actively update information related to his work and learn to think about systems and products logically. Not only completing the tasks, expanding knowledge and exploring optimized ways of achieving things are the working attitudes that R&D members always try to pursue and remind each other. A few successful projects beyond expectations include:
- S3 Cost Optimization: Optimize the storage cost of photos and videos on Amazon S3. After being applied, it has saved 20% monthly compared to before.
- Cloudsearch Oversea to Elasticsearch Migration: Switch the entire search functions of oversea sites from using AWS Cloudsearch to the Elasticsearch - new search engine with modern features that are more convenient and more stable.
- MP4 / 4K: project that supports uploading and selling MP4 / 4K videos on Pixta Stock platform is promptly caught up with new trends in the creative industry.
COMPETE AND BURN THE PASSION OUT
Code Camp and Code Contest are 2 annual activities organized exclusively for R&D department members in which:
- Code Camp: a two-day picnic program, developers work together to research and present new technologies or develop an MVP product
- Code Contest: A contest of programming skills between developers of Pixta and developers from other companies in Hanoi
Through internal and external code competitions, R&D members have the opportunity to network, improve skills and learn from their colleagues as well as from engineers from other software companies. Setting daily development works aside for a few days to join solving tough algorithmic questions or learning new technologies such as Deep Learning, Blockchain, IoT that help programmers breach their limitations and challenge themselves. Constantly keeping yourself in a technological environment and interacting with individuals who share the same passion is essential to motivate and inspire your personal growth and continuous improvement.
SPORT - THE CONNECTION FROM POSITIVE ENERGY
Table tennis and soccer are two favorite sports at PIXTA Vietnam. Sports not only make us healthier but also create positive energy through which to connect and build close relationships among members.
“When I first joined Pixta, I still did not know how to get to know other members because I was a quiet person. Joining table tennis matches, I find myself easier to talk to people "- Giang (Lab Team) shared.
If you have a chance to visit PIXTA Vietnam someday, please do not hesitate, let's play a ping pong match at the end of working time, we will definitely be closer.
Owning young engineers is one of the great advantages of PIXTA Vietnam. Passion for technology, progressive thinking, flexibility, ability to adapt quickly and can-do spirit have created a unique culture for the R & D department. In the Vietnam market, PIXTA Vietnam was known as one of the companies with a clear recruitment process and higher entry standards than other VN software development companies. In addition to the basic knowledge of web development, PIXTA Vietnam focuses on selecting young software engineers with good qualities, logical and coherent mindset and self-learning ability. Because of the rigor right from the beginning, the R&D department is still maintaining a youthful class of software engineers who love to develop products and have the ability to do better every day.
2020 has knocked, let’s wait for new achievements from the PIXTA VN R&D department!
