Emma Lin: Making The Move From Video Games to Real Life Dreams

Emma Lin is a Senior Software Architect and Technical Lead at VMware, a virtualization and cloud computing software provider for x86-compatible computers. With almost ten years of experience in the tech industry she’s managed to rise to the top of her field, developing comprehensive expertise in security, virtualization, cloud computing, and big data. However all of this success started, with a simple game.

Growing up, Emma loved role playing games. She was passionate about the art, the storytelling, and the experience of taking on a role as a hero in a video game tale that unfolded according to her actions. But she never limited herself to the status of user, and she always dreamed of developing those games herself. She wanted to be the one who could create the magic that millions would enjoy. That led her to choose Computer Science as her major when she moved on to higher education.

In college she matured past those fantasies and found the true power of programming. It was there where she discovered that coding could have an impact on people’s lives, giving her the tools to change and enhance the real world. While she maintained a fond affection for her childhood dreams, her classes brought her into a new realm, where she started to master the magic of computer programming.

Today Emma is a Tech Lead for VMware’s Big Data Extension (BDE) program. There she spends her time overcoming daily challenges, by meeting them with courage and aplomb as she spearheads architectural improvements and new algorithm developments for the company. She’s fostered several projects within her division, and has helped to build a team around her that is agile, nimble, skilled, and able to meet any technical trials that may arise.

Most recently she overcame several serious issues with BDE that were never considered by any other Virtual Center users. With the help of her team, Emma was able to significantly reduce the time it took to create a cluster. She was also able to build a system that made it much easier to run Hadoop through a virtualized environment, which in turn improved user experience without a detrimental impact to overall performance.

Throughout her work, Emma has been a motivating spirit that has encouraged the developers around her to grow, learn, and achieve their full potential. She recently discovered Women Who Code, and there she has found a support group that does the same for her. This has boosted her confidence, while also helping her to evolve into the leadership role that she is naturally suited to. When asked what advice she would give to young female engineers trying to break into the field she says, “Trust yourself, we’re all in this together, and you’ll be better tomorrow than you are today.”