AT A GLANCE:
The Data Privacy Protection Capability Centre (DPPCC), or the Data Privacy team, has three main goals – (a) develop the Government’s capabilities in data privacy protection technology solutions, (b) implement Whole-of-Government (WOG) data privacy solutions to preserve privacy interests of individuals and (c) provide consultancy services to Agencies facing difficulties with implementing data privacy technologies. Teams with such responsibilities need to stay agile and open to learning. That is what Syahri has done by upskilling with GovTech Digital Academy (DA).
BACKGROUND:
Syahri started his journey in GovTech as a Data Engineer in DPPCC, a subset of the Data Engineering team from the Data Science and Artificial Intelligence Division (DSAID). This was when DPPCC was newly formed, which meant that he was the first and only engineer! Nevertheless, he remained undeterred. His passion for solving complex challenges, enabling innovations and creating a seamless user experience drove him to push forward and make tremendous contributions to his team and the broader Data Engineering team.
Syahri is heavily involved in developing and productionising key products such as Cloak, a self-service portal that simplifies privacy-enhancing technologies for non-technical users, and the Ministry of Health’s (MOH) TRUST, a platform for anonymised health-related data sharing between the public and private sectors. In fact, he was the sole developer of Cloak during its early days and has been involved in every stage of its development! These days, he also executes whitespace projects such as Differential Privacy and Synthetic Data Generation.
NEED FOR UPSKILLING:
When working in a lean team, it is often the case that team members will wear several hats to meet their objectives. Syahri and his team realised that if they had DevOps skills, they could maximise their productivity to automate deployment for quicker turnarounds. At the same time, they also realised that having baseline testing capabilities would help them create concrete test plans before pushing to production. That was when Syahri decided that he needed to upskill.
LEARNING JOURNEY:
Situation
Going from a blank canvas to a one-stop self-service Central Privacy Toolkit (i.e.Cloak) is a tremendous feat for any team, let alone a team of two. Syahri and his Product Manager needed to define their objectives, construct their vision and select the right team members to expand their team. First, they had to establish an agile team that could deliver rapid advancements while adhering to stringent policies. After all, meticulous testing procedures and security-compliant system architectures are critical in the development of a data privacy platform.
Task
Their next course of action was to lay the groundwork for the WOG data privacy platform to ensure seamless alignment between the technical roadmap, organisational objectives of the platform and policy considerations. This was to ensure smooth integration between policy and technology. Syahri started by conducting research and refining the wireframes. He was also involved in architecting and developing the platform, which included selecting technology stacks and crafting a scalable architecture.
Action
To rise to the challenge, Syahri pursued targeted learning at DA. He attended Automating Infrastructure Provisioning and Configuration for skills in Infrastructure-as-Code (Terraform) and Ansible and Packer to spin out new system environments. He also took ISTQB® Tester Foundation Level and Test Automation Engineer to enhance his testing skills. To tie everything together, he attended DevOps Engineering on AWS, which enabled him to establish efficient deployment pipelines for frontend and backend components.
Results
Equipped with his new skills, Syahri created a successful productionised system, known today asCloak, for users from more than 80 Public Service Agencies. He also streamlined deployment processes to ease the workload of developers with his new DevOps skills, as well as conceived and integrated comprehensive testing strategies with his enhanced testing proficiency.
Syahri did not stop there. He pioneered the significance of DevOps practices within the Data Engineering team, sharing its benefits throughout DSAID. Further, he leveraged his expertise in Infrastructure-as-Code to craft reusable and standardised code. Not only was this advantageous to DPPCC, it also caused a ripple effect across the broader Data Engineering team.
“Fostering the development of technical competencies equips every Public Officer with the tools to propel tech-enabled societal progress. This increases our collective ability to drive innovation and navigate complexities of an evolving landscape, ensuring a more effective and impactful public service."
Syahri
Data Engineer, Data Science and Artificial Intelligence Division, GovTech
NEXT STEPS:
Syahri is thrilled to embark on technology-based programmes such as Python for intermediate and advanced developers, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud. He also wishes to attend Product Owner programmes to prepare him for the managerial aspects of product development to further value add to GovTech and Singapore Public Service.
EMBARK ON YOUR LEARNING JOURNEY:
Syahri’s unshakeable commitment to expanding his competencies has allowed him to confidently play a pivotal role in improving his team’s products and workflow.
Keen to embark on your own learning journey?
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