Employee Spotlight: Phung Ngo Discusses Transition from Intern to Full-Time UX/Front End Developer at Makpar

Phung Ngo, UX/Front End Developer in the Makpar Innovation Lab

In the following Makpar employee Q&A interview, Phung Ngo discusses her transition from being an intern at Makpar to taking over the role of being the UX/Front End Developer at the company. She also discusses how being part of the Makpar Innovation Lab has allowed her to expand her knowledge and capabilities when it comes to UX and UI design.

The following conversation has been edited for length.

Q: Please tell us a bit about your background.

Ngo: Prior to joining Makpar, I was a Computer Science major at George Mason University, where I worked on several projects around the design and development of applications. My interests were definitely in UI and UX development and design. This experience was helpful in preparing me for both my internship and becoming a UX/Front End Developer at Makpar.

Q: Tell us about your experience as an intern at Makpar.

Ngo: When I first joined, I was able to design prototypes, and learn Adobe XD, where I put into practice some actual front-end development, which was very exciting.

Within the first few months, I was able to gain lots of feedback from the Makpar developers and project managers, which advanced my learning and gave me the confidence I needed to advance my career. Makpar also allowed me take some front-end UX training courses, and put this new knowledge into practice.

Q: Tell us about your transition from being an intern to being a UX/Front End Developer at Makpar.

Ngo: Once I became a full-time employee, the UI and UX aspect of my job became more formalized. I am now taking the Google UX six-month training course, and I will be able to build some projects within this training – to get even more experience.

Now, I feel like everything is falling more into place in terms of this role. Amanda Chavez, Director of CX at NuAxis Innovations, also is mentoring me and guiding my career. She started the CX practice at NuAxis, a Makpar partner company, and has been sharing a world of knowledge with me.

Q: Please tell us about your role at the Makpar Innovation Lab.

Ngo: Whenever we get a new project, I do the front-end design, and then develop the actual code. The coolest thing that we have done is definitely the government agency code challenge that we won. It was a highly competitive scenario, and I saw the true value and power of teamwork during this process.

The Innovation Lab is really grounded in teamwork. We practiced and prepped for the code challenge for several months, and this provided me with a great opportunity to learn from and bond with the Innovation Lab team.

In addition, Tariq Islam, Makpar’s Director of Technology and Solutions, has helped to guide both my daily work and my future role at Makpar and career overall. Peter Cofrancesco, Innovation Engineer at Makpar, and Justin Stauffer, Information Technology Engineer, have also taught me many things about being a front-end developer.

Q: Please tell us about the Makpar culture overall.

Ngo: It’s a wonderful place to work. I also really enjoy being a remote employee, which helps to balance my work and personal life. Even though many people work from home, I definitely feel connected to the team. We have also met up in-person several times, which has been great.

Overall, the culture is very inclusive and friendly. Everyone is always ready to help me, and I am very thankful for this opportunity.

Q: What are your future plans?

Ngo: I look forward to finishing up all of my training and learning as much as possible from Amanda. I would like to also establish a formalized UX practice at the Makpar Innovation Lab to make it more process-driven and have UI/UX part of everything that we do.

We would like to officially thank Phung for sharing her insights with us!

The Makpar Innovation Lab introduces new products and services for Makpar’s customers through testing and development of the latest emerging technologies. The team continually aims to improve solutions to gain the most meaningful data-driven insights for informed market decisions.

The more Makpar Innovation Lab team refines, the more it can improve solutions that help the Federal government focus on their most important missions: meeting the needs of the American people.