Spotlight: Yue Fang, Product Manager at TRON
Yue Fang is a Product Manager for dev tools and infrastructure at TRON. Previously, she helped establish Juilliard’s first branch campus in Tianjin, China. She revolutionized online science labs to make them more engaging, accessible and affordable.
In this blog profile, she shares a snippet of what her daily work life consists of and how she found herself in the midst of the growing blockchain industry.
What is your favorite part about working in tech?
Problem solving and serving people, which actually apply to any industry. What’s unique about working in tech is that it is much easier to operate at a bigger scale and have a larger impact.
What is your typical work day like?
To me, roughly 40% time is external facing, interacting with users, customers and business partners; about 60% time is internal facing, working mostly closely with engineering, but also with design, data, marketing, business development and legal. It is a balance of being organized and being flexible solving whatever problem that comes up.
What is important for you in a company culture?
User-centric, supportive and self-reflective.
With your background in program management, what made you interested in TRON and blockchain product management? How much did you know about blockchain prior to working at TRON?
I knew very little about blockchain when I joined TRON, but I had been curious about the technology for a while. The strong curiosity to understand blockchain and the strong desire to improve payment systems were what drew me into blockchain product management. Of course, the potential use cases for blockchain go far beyond payment.
I am originally from China and am very passionate about globalization. In my previous roles, I helped my companies expand their international reach. I was very excited about the opportunity to help TRON, which originated from China, expand its overseas market.
How much do you need to know about blockchain before entering the industry?
I would say, all you need is an interest in learning about blockchain. Even though it has been about 10 years since Bitcoin came out, the industry, in my opinion, is still very young. More than half of my team, me included, had no blockchain experience prior to TRON.
I would really love to see blockchain being utilized in different industries, such as transportation, education, healthcare, gaming, etc… So no matter what your professional background is, it can surely be helpful when you work with blockchain.
What’s unique about working in tech is that it is much easier to operate at a bigger scale and have a larger impact.
What part of your work consists of blockchain work? Please describe.
My primary responsibility is to ship dev tools and build a cloud-based infrastructure for developers who want to build applications on TRON. My team does not work on TRON blockchain protocol itself. We are the users of TRON blockchain ourselves, and we enable developers to interact with TRON blockchain more easily.
How do you make sure you’re always in the know for the latest technologies?
I read a lot. Also, I am constantly learning from my colleagues and our users. And if something looks really interesting or promising, I will try it out myself.
What is one of your favorite resources for product management?
There are tons of great resources available online. I really enjoy learning from the product managers around me, observing how they communicate, approach a problem and gather user feedback.
What projects are you and your team currently working on?
We had two major releases this year for TronGrid that enables developers to focus on their applications without worrying about setting up infrastructure. Our API service’s availability and latency have been significantly improved. We are currently working on TronGrid’s scalability and maintainability. Also TRON Protocol has a few major releases coming up. We are getting ready for those as well.
What is the best career/personal advice you’ve ever received?
When not sure, choose the harder path.
How would you define a successful leader?
There are 100 types of successful leaders. To me, one that can empower many others to succeed is a truly successful leader.
What’s your favorite book/food/podcast?
I love many, therefore I cannot name a favorite. I recently re-read one of Sanmao’s books for the 101th time. I enjoy any home cooking made with love. I’ve been listening to “The Economist Asks” and “Decrypted” podcasts lately.
Where do you see yourself in 10 years? What do you wake up looking forward to?
I honestly do not know. I always look forward to two things: 1. addressing problems that deeply bother me, my family, and others; 2. Understanding something new.
Yue will be sharing more about her experience at the first panel in ModelExpand’s new series: Women in Blockchain. Check out our upcoming events here or learn more about our sponsorship opportunities.
ModelExpand: ModelExpand is a diversity and inclusion advisory firm that helps companies attract and retain diverse talent through strategic consulting, workshops and events.
