Luojia was always interested in designing things, even at an early age growing up in Beijing. Her curiosity about how things worked led her to study engineering at high school and university. Seeking a new adventure (and a warmer climate), Luojia found herself moving to Sydney to do a Masters in IT at UNSW, after which she decided to settle down, begin her career and start a family.
Over the past 20 years Luojia has worked in senior engineering roles across a range of sectors, before joining ING in 2022. Within a year she was promoted to Lead Engineer, Storage and Compute within the Infrastructure Tribe. In this role she manages the team responsible for backing up and restoring data from the ING network in the event of any issues, e.g. disaster recovery.
She says: “When people ask what I do, I say, if you have lost any data, come to me and I’ll help you find it as long as it’s been backed up.”
An opportunity to learn and grow
For Luojia, it was a chance moment where a LinkedIn job ad featuring an ING Tech role appeared in her inbox, and it looked like the perfect match for her skills and interests.
“I liked the technology used at ING as I’ve used these in previous roles. And I got a good feeling from the team I met during the interview process.”
The role also gave Luojia the opportunity to gain leadership experience, and further develop her skills while helping her team achieve their potential.
“In the beginning I had to adapt to this new working structure as we have a local team and an offshore team that I look after – I haven’t been in that kind of environment before.”
Challenging work and supportive culture
Stepping into financial services for the first time meant new ways of working, and new processes and regulations that had to be followed. Luojia credits the support of her leaders and the team around her, who’ve helped make her first couple of years at ING enjoyable.
“It’s been a good learning experience. The team is great. Everyone is really friendly and supportive, and always willing to help, wherever you work in the Tech team.”
“Because the environment is bigger than previous companies, I’m getting to design more and implement more, which is the stuff I love doing.”
“It’s the kind of place where you can ask for new technology if you think it will help improve the way we do things, as long as it works within the IT environment.”
Luojia has been quick to make her mark at ING, implementing a new data storage solution for the bank and looking at ways to further mitigate any risk to data loss and cyber security, such as ransomware protection. Her team is also responsible for providing the backup capability for ING’s new data platform as part of the bank’s tech transformation program.
Finding theright balance
According to Luojia, one of the things that sets ING apart from other workplaces, is the work/life balance thanks to the ability to work flexibly 50/50 from office and home.
When she’s not at work, Luojia is mum to an 11 year old daughter and 17 year old son. She spends her weekends looking after the house and providing a taxi service for her children’s social activities.
“I’m busy at work from Monday to Friday, but I definitely prefer it over housework!’
Luojia’s advice to anyone thinking of developing a career in Tech at ING is simple.
“You’ve got to be passionate about tech and want to continue to learn. If that sounds like you, there are so many opportunities here.”