Please Say Hello To isocket’s Newest Addition, Alicia Tang!

Over the past few months the isocket office has really been filling up and I gotta say that it’s been pretty nice having more people around. If we hopped into the Way Back Machine (and by way back I mean 3-4 months ago), you might remember me introducing Vinoth (aka the ‘Singapore Sensation’) to the team who was then followed up by our doubling down on designers with Eston and Al (and his dog Cosmo) who also joined the mix. Each of these additions have brought with them so much talent, experience, creativity and quirkiness it’s kinda crazy and as a combined force we have really put together an amazing team. Also I gotta say, since I was the first non-founder hired it’s been really cool to see the team come together. It hasn’t been easy, but we’re really starting to hit our stride.

With all of that being said, just when you think that the isocket team can’t possibly get any more awesome-er I am writing this post to officially let you know that yes, in fact we can and how we do that is by adding yet another talented engineer to our team. The engineer that I’m speaking of is a woman who has been around the world of technology for a long time and who is super excited to help us build isocket into a product that we all envision it can be. The only thing that she loves more than writing code is cooking up amazing food (she loves her husband a lot, too) and although she was a little surprised when she found out we had three office dogs, she now can’t imagine not having them around. Besides that, I’ll let the interview below fill you in on everything else you need to know about our newest addition to the team, Alicia Tang.

1. Hey Alicia, how about we start off with a little bit about your background. Where did you grow up and how long have you been living in California? Also, when you were first deciding to make the move, what actually made you make the jump?

I was born and grew up in a nice mid-sized city in northeastern China, where it snows every winter. I came to California in the hot summer of 2006 and stayed in L.A. for a year to get my masters in electrical engineering. I initially decided to come to the US because “the love of my life” went to Stanford so I guess you could say that it was love that eventually made me stay. I guess that’s as good of a reason as any, right?

2. I hear that you have an interesting story as far as how you got accepted to the college where you ended up studying. What are some of the details of that story and what college did you end up attending?

Technically, I finished high school in about one year, which basically got me a free pass to any college nation-wide. That year was the hardest and best year of my life so far. I was on the province team (team of 5) and was the first girl in the previous six years that landed a spot for physics Olympia. Little did I know that I would fall in love with my husband during the preparation for the final contest. So, I followed him to Peking University and studied Physics there.

3. Where did you work before you made your way to isocket and how did we track you down? What were your first impressions of the isocket team and what made you excited about working with us?

After 2 years of working at Symantec on their Veritas Server Cluster product I had the chance to meet some people who told me all about isocket. It sounded cool, so I decided to check it out for myself. My first impression was the big hand-draw isocket logo on the whiteboard in the entry room. When I saw that I knew that this was truly a startup.  The business model of isocket is simple and clean, and it only took me about 10 minutes to convince my husband that isocket rocks and that it’s the place for me.

4. When we first interviewed you I remember you mentioning that you built a web app for your husband in your spare time. What kind of app was it and what did you enjoy most about creating it?

The app is for manage/watch all our stock accounts. When it became the first website we both open every morning, I knew that it was definitely worth all the effort I put into it. Also, building this application moved me from system level, networking developer to application level, web developer. I learned java/php/javascript/ajax/mysql all by myself just so that I could build it. And during that whole process is when I really started to love developing web apps.

5. You’re the first female to work at isocket (besides Boomer, of course) – what’s it like working with a bunch of guys?

Ok, I have to admit that I am the second ‘official’ woman to be in the office, right behind Boomer. The female:male ratio at my high school was 1:4, at college was 1:9. So according to my past experiences, it’s pretty good here 1:5(2:7). Also, us girls like to get together. Boomer lays next to my feet once a while and that makes me feel warm and sweet. We’ve actually become good friends very quickly.

6. When you’re not sitting in front of your laptop, what do you enjoy doing? (you do get away from your laptop every now and then, right?)

If I’m not in front of the computer, I will most likely be in the kitchen. Cooking is art and it is what I would love to to do once I retire. Check out pics below for some examples of things I’ve cooked up in my spare time.

7. What do you think about the isocket dogs? Have you gotten used to them yet?

Dogs are part of isocket culture. Having them around makes all of the hard work here more relaxed and it also makes the office feel more like home. More importantly, dogs were born to be our companions and help us have fun and that’s just what the dogs here do.