At high school, Kuiliang was interested in computer science and won second prize in the National Olympiad in Informatics. Although he chose FAM for his undergraduate study, he has never abandoned his interest in computer science.

As an initiator and co-founder of uFair, Kuiliang made significant contribution to the development of the two popular WeChat Mini Programmes, uCourse and UNNCMap, which dedicated to improving the learning experience for UNNC students. He and his team was responsible for the development of the user data warehouse and automatic data processing systems, during which his programming capabilities significantly improved.

In the meanwhile, Kuiliang spent a large amount of time on Coursera to learn things like databases, data visualisation and machine learning. With a deeper understanding of data analysis, Kuiliang decided to take a gap year to do a full-time internship as a data analyst for Didi.

Despite a dramatically increased workload and complexity of data, he developed a machine learning model to predict passenger churn rates and future turnover with an accuracy rate of 90%. "This internship has broadened my horizons and I’m more determined to become a data analyst," Kuiliang said.

Before the pandemic, Kuiliang had planned to pursue a Master’s in data analysis. “I was quite anxious because of the disruption.” He recalled that Patti Wallace, Head of the University Counselling Service, gave him great support. “She helped me to figure out my real thoughts and embrace the uncontrollable factors in life.”

He finally turned to seek for employment and stood out among numerous excellent competitors to obtain the offer from ByteDance. “Studying business let me know how to communicate and cooperate, and campus entrepreneurship taught me management. What I learned and experienced gave me the confidence to face any possible difficulties.” Kuiliang summarised job hunting as obstacles, luck and capability.

Although clear about his passion and career direction, Kuiliang never stopped enriching his own knowledge and capabilities. “I know my prospective colleagues are superb, so I want to take the half-year before work to review what I have learned.”