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4.6
  • 1,000 - 50,000 employees

Steven Chen

Steven Chen studied Master of Information Technology, Major in Computing at the University of Melbourne in 2019 and is now a Technology Graduate at NAB

7:00 am – 9:00 am

While working from home now, 7:30 am is early enough for me to get up for the day and even to allow me to snooze my alarm a few times. I would then quickly make myself a cup of coffee and some breakfast while starting up my work laptop. I will then enjoy my breakfast and accompany it with quick checks on my emails and calendar to make sure I totally understand the to-dos for the day.

If I am heading to the office today, I will definitely make sure I get myself out of bed at 7:00 am and get into my car before 7:30 am. It takes me about 1 to 1.5 hours on the way to driving to work, depending on traffic. When I arrive at 700 Bourke St, I will always grab a large flat white from Mr Grazier before I get in the lift.

train

9:00 am – 12:00 am

This is usually the quiet time block for me because our team have many colleagues located in Vietnam and our meetings and collaboration do not happen now due to time difference. Therefore, this is also the perfect time block for me to focus on my own work. Since we are doing Tech Spikes for our project, I would most likely be conducting some interesting tests and experiments on a new vendor application.

If I am working from home, I will be sitting in my home office next to my air plants. If at office, I will spend the first 15 mins trying to locate where my teammates are sitting at and this, to me, is always an interesting and surprising way to start off my day.

PC

12:00 pm – 1:00 pm

After a few hours of concentration on work, now it is the perfect time for lunch break to regain some energy.

If at home, I will make a lunch for myself and most likely I will cook a steak accompanied by some vegies as this is both time-saving and delicious. If at office, I will definitely go to Ichimachi downstairs and order my favorite Chicken Udon.

1:00 pm – 3:00 pm

After a good lunch, now it’s time to go back to work.

This is usually the fun time slot that I can see all my teammates. Every day at 14:00 pm, we will have our daily standup in which we discuss what we will do today and point out any roadblocks. Also, every once in a fortnight, we will have all other Agile ceremonies during this time. I find the Showcase sessions most exciting because all of us get to present on what we have achieved in the last Sprint. Also, the Retrospective is a great growth opportunity as we all get to reflect on what happened in the last 2 weeks.

3:00 pm – 4:00 pm 

For my current rotation, this is the time for my routing meeting with another team if today is Wednesday. In our project, we need to integrate many data sources within the bank via API calls. So, in this meeting, I, with another senior teammate, will discuss with a representative from this other team about how we can make these API calls happen between our application and the service provided by them. These meetings have been valuable opportunities for me to learn so much more about how different teams cooperate with each other, how the technology section of the bank work as a whole and how to effectively communicate new ideas.

4:00 pm – 5:00 pm

Thanks to the flexibility we enjoy at NAB! If at office, I am usually ready to head home at this time to avoid the traffic which would cost me an extra 30 mins if I leave after 17.00. If at home, this is time for me to work on my garden or perform other housework. Anyway, this is usually a break time for me to get my mind off work for a short while.

5:00 pm – 7:00 pm

Whether I am coming back from 1-hour driving or garden works, I must be starving so it is time to have dinner! Although I might occasionally go out with friends or colleagues for dinner, on a typical day I will be cooking for myself again. It’s never easy to me to decide what to eat for dinner, but I will make sure I treat myself with something good and this is exactly why I allocate 2 hours on my dinner time block.

7:00 pm – 9:00 pm

After a satisfying dinner, I will go back to my desk in my home office. As I tend to be more productive when it is late and quiet, this time slot is when I can focus again on the hard tasks or a learning time if I happen to have an easy day. When it is close to the end of this block, I will quickly go through my emails and calendar again to have an idea about what’s going to happen tomorrow.

9:00 pm – 1:00 am

Finally, it is the last time block of my day and this is relaxing time! Not sure if I have as many hobbies as other people do, I will most likely do one or a combination of the following: playing games, watching TV series, watching movies, reading, playing piano or working on model kits. By the end of these, I will go to bed and fall asleep almost instantly after such a long day.