Wei Gao

Experience

BlackRock: Vice President, Senior Software Engineer

June 2022 - Present Singapore

Highlights

I lead the Campaigns Front-End Pillar (Campaigns FE) of BlackRock's Aladdin Wealth Tech (AWT), landing the feature suite from 0 to 1 and continuing to lead the team for its future commitments. I collaborate with Campaigns PM, Campaigns designers, and various platform teams to deliver Campaigns feature suite for our clients.

Current scope and responsibilities

• Code & technical contributions: As a senior engineer I work on features across our application and am an active owner of our codebase by contribution and code review. I make my tech choices based on the motivations and business contexts behind the asks. I keep a track record of delivering front-end UI to pixel-level perfection. I favor readable code that is reliable and efficient. I keep my work well-documented.
• Support: As one of the domain experts, I enable our global client team to support their clients by providing knowledge and triaging issue when needed.
• Manage stakeholders: As FE stakeholder for Campaigns FE, I routinely participate in discussions and weigh in from front-end engineering perspectives. I educate my stakeholders on the capabilities and limitations of web technologies and help them make the best decision for the system.
• Team leadership: As team lead of Campaigns FE, I own the success of the delivery of our front end product suite. I coordinate our sprint planning and host our tech-product-design discussions, ensuring that the business goals are mapped to clear and achievable technical tasks. I represent Campaigns FE in the bigger AWT engineering department.
• Mentorship: As engineering lead for Campaigns FE, I mentor junior members to help them succeed in their role and career. Via code reviews to a broad audience I provide mentorship focusing on engineering best practices. Via regular 1-1's with my team members and a number of junior engineers outside of Campaigns, I provide guidance that touches more areas of their development.

Shopee: Senior Software Engineer

Nov 2016 - June 2022 Singapore

Highlights

As one of the initial members of the WebFE team, I developed the inaugural versions of Shopee's web applications for both PC and mobile. As the team evolved, I also contributed to the team's growth, particularly in fostering a culture of knowledge-sharing. Later as web platform engineer, I work on cross-team projects that are central to Shopee's web front end engineering.

• Browser stats dashboard: Established a Google Analytics dashboard for WebFE team, enabling the team to gain insights into users' web browsing statitics, and to guide decisions on browser support.
• Adopting Shopee PC for tablets: Led a cross-team project to adapt Shopee's PC site for tablets, introducing UI improvements like swipe gestures and accessibility features, while advising Designers and Product Managers on web technology best practices.
• Built Shopee web app from ground up: Built inaugural versions of Shopee's web apps that grew into the app we see today. Worked on both app features and platform tasks as the team grew, and eventually joined Platform Team to focus on common parts of the apps.
• Proud creator of “RK”: Started and co-organized internal sharing series “React Knowledgeable” for our React teams. The series sees 85 occurrences and over 100 talks delivered over two years. It was a beloved casual event for the team every week.

Earlier experiences

Web Developer, Didi June 2015 - Oct 2016, Beijing

Management Trainee, Lenovo Apr 2013 - Apr 2015, Beijing

Lecturer (Part-Time), New Oriental School Sept 2012 - Mar 2014, Beijing

Community Engagements

I'm a committed participant in the local tech scene, focused on promoting knowledge sharing and guiding students in their tech career pursuits.

• UWS STEM Fest 2023 Nov 2023

  Joined as panelist to share my experience as a Senior Software Engineer at BlackRock.

• CS 3216 Guest Speaker Oct 2023

  Personal sharing “Key Moments” on my journey as a software engineer.

• NUS Hack’n’Roll 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025

  Joined as judge.

• JSConf China Oct 2019

  Keynote speaker of day 2, giving talk “Learn as I Write the Docs”

• Various meetups, conferences 2018-2019

  Gave talks/workshops/lightning talks in various events such as SingaporeCSS, SingaporeJS, JuniorDevSG events, JSConf Budapest, etc.