Kwong Lai

Kwong Lai has over 20 years of work experience in software engineering and management roles. Kwong is currently the Head of Software Engineering at Rubicon Water, where they lead multiple development teams in building software for farmers and irrigators. Kwong focuses on driving transformation through agile, DevOps, automation, and cloud adoption.

Prior to Rubicon Water, Kwong worked as a Development Manager at Xero, where they were responsible for recruiting and onboarding developers and automation engineers. Kwong also looked after the welfare, performance, and professional development of their team members.

Before Xero, Kwong served as a Software Engineering Line Manager at Amdocs, leading a product development unit that provided banking and financial services to over 250 million customers worldwide. Kwong supervised and inspired a team of 40+ technical staff, including dev leads, software developers, automation engineers, architects, and DevOps.

Kwong's experience also includes being the Director of Engineering at payvia, where they led a team in designing, developing, and supporting a mobile payment platform. Kwong successfully delivered the project within 5 months, launching it with a major client, Skype, in the US.

Additionally, Kwong has worked as a Senior Software Engineer at ANZ, where they contributed to the design and delivery of the FX single dealer platform. Kwong was involved in architectural design, hands-on software development, and liaising with various technology teams to achieve business goals.

Earlier in their career, Kwong worked as a Technical Team Lead at Mobile Messenger, leading a team of Java engineers and maintaining the company's core services. Kwong also gained experience as a Software Engineer at Catapult Communications and Agilent Technologies.

Kwong began their career as a Postdoctoral Researcher at RMIT University, conducting research on location-based caching techniques for wireless devices and performance measurements of web services over wireless networks. Kwong also served as a Tutor and Lecturer at RMIT University, mentoring junior research staff and master/PhD students.

Throughout their career, Kwong has demonstrated their expertise in software engineering, team leadership, and project management, consistently delivering high-quality results.

Kwong Lai completed a Ph.D. in Computer Science from RMIT University from 2002 to 2004. Prior to that, from 1997 to 2001, they pursued a Bachelor's degree in Applied Science (B.A.Sc.) in Computer Science and a Bachelor's degree in Engineering (B.Eng.) in Communication Engineering, both from RMIT University.

In terms of additional certifications, Kwong Lai obtained the following certifications:

- AWS Cloud Practitioner Essentials from Amazon Web Services (AWS) in 2019.

- Xero Evangelist Certification from Xero in August 2018.

- Xero Certified Advisor from Xero in 2018.

- Professional Scrum Master 1 (PSM I) from Scrum.org in 2015.

- Sun Certified Java Programmer from Sun Microsystems in 2009.