Young Thai crafts profile for US success

Twenty-five-year-old Petch Wannissorn, the youngest and latest Thai developer to join Twitter in San Francisco, spent seven years studying in the United States. 

He recently gained his second master’s degree – in Software Management and Entrepreneurship from Carnegie Mellon University  – after first having graduated in Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Michigan, and then gaining a master’s in Computer Science from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

His time in the US has all been about the crafting of his profile and setting out on a journey, as well as determining a life destination of his own choosing. 

Petch’s dream has been to be a part a global tech firm, especially a relative start-up, in order to fulfil his passion to create services for people. 

He completed internships in recent years at both Facebook and Google, but finally applied for a full-time job at Twitter. 

He started at the fast-growing social-networking company just two weeks after completing a six-year journey that took him to a number of tech firms, including the internships at the two modern-day giants.

“I started to gather working experience as an interned employee when I was a second-year student. It wasn’t an easy task for a junior with no work experience and [at the time] having only a little skill in programming and English. Finally, I got a job at HandyLab after my applications were rejected by 30 companies I approached,” said Petch.

In his view, experience is such an invaluable asset in the tech world that anyone with similar aspirations has to be prepared to put in the time and effort required to acquire it. 

He was, therefore, determined to be an interned employee in tech firms every summer whilst at university, rather than coming home to Thailand between semesters. 

“I needed to start doing that first in order to reach my goal. I needed to build my profile and craft my programming skills from when I was young. I was rejected by so many companies every year I applied for an internship, but I never gave up. I believed that there was always one company that would give me a job,” said Petch.

He continued this approach by applying for internships in his later years of study, applying for positions at large companies such as Yahoo, Google, Apple and Amazon – all to no avail. Then, finally, he got a job at Linux Box, where he worked as a web developer for four months.

A year later, he got an internship at Facebook as part of a team responsible for the social-network giant’s friend list. This was a major turning point, as working as an interned employee at such a dynamic company energised him further. 

“At Facebook, I was working among geniuses and smart guys who were always talking to each other about new technologies and innovations. I was alert all the time, as I realised that there were so many things I needed to keep up with and learn about,” said Petch.

He finished his internship at Facebook at the same time he got his bachelor’s degree, and decided to continue for a master’s immediately – at the same time applying for an internship, as usual.

 

Doors start to open

“After I gained work experience at Facebook, it seemed my life became easier. There were more many companies offering me an internship, such as Microsoft, Yahoo and Ning. It was my turn to choose one of them, rather than them choosing me,” he said.

Petch opted for an internship at Google, the company he had dreamed of working for and one that he had been applying to for four years. “I worked on Google’s search infrastructure for three months,” he said.

After finishing his master’s in Computer Science at UCLA, he decided to take another master’s – in Software Management and Entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon University – with the aim of learning about entrepreneurship so that he could one day fulfil another dream and form his own business.

However, this second master’s course never stopped him applying for an internship, and he went back to Facebook for another three months, this time working on their ads interface. 

“I found the mentality of Facebook and Google to be quite different. At Facebook, the focus is on ‘moving fast and breaking things’ but at Google, it is on making the product or service stable before launching it,” said Petch.

After gaining valuable experience at the two tech giants, he decided that that he what he really wanted to do after completing his studies was work at a younger company. Therefore, he chose to settle in his first full-time job at Twitter.

“There are so many challenging things to do at Twitter. Twitter is in the growth stage rather than Facebook and Google, which are in the mature stage. I love to be a part of that growth. It is more challenging for me,” said Petch.

At Twitter, his work is in the field of real-time data processing, and it means he has just embarked on the next chapter in his journey, now that the internship phase is behind him.

“My dream is to have my own service operation. I would dearly love to create a new service for people. I am on the way to my destination. I need to gather working experience and ideas, and craft my own development,” said Petch.

He added that in tech business, opportunities are always out there and everything is possible.

“Always keep yourself ready and, when the chance comes along, you can grasp it – this is my motto,” said the 25-year-old.