Kang Sun, ‘14 computer science
Network Test Engineer, Core OS Networking team
Apple
Cupertino, California

Typical day . . . my major responsibility is to make sure every Apple product has good network connectivity at all times. My group designs test plans, prepares setup and executes tests for network connectivity including WiFi, cellular network and Bluetooth. I collaborate with people across multiple teams at Apple.

Engineering challenge . . . for me, the most challenging part is getting to know the networking protocol in every minor detail as soon as possible. Each protocol is designed with its own architecture or set of rules. Solving technical problems related to these protocols can give an understanding as to why they were designed that way.

Living the life . . . there are a lot of smart, amazing folks here at Apple, and it’s a great place to spread an idea and make an impact on the world. Working with brilliant people makes yourself better every day. There is a lot of networking knowledge I can gain here that is not available in textbooks yet, in addition having access to the latest technologies that I can learn about.

Sense of pride . . . being an engineer has the potential to shape the world on a large scale and create something that has never existed before. I am proud to work at Apple to create meaningful, impactful products that are popular with customers.

My Auburn Engineering . . . provided me with a solid knowledge of networking that has been a great resource for my career, especially the thesis project I worked on with my computer science and software engineering adviser Saad Biaz. We worked together to implement a binary exponential code backoff algorithm to replace the original binary exponential backoff algorithm in WiFi protocol. It reduced the adverse impact from interference by concurrent transmissions. This was a great lesson on how to plan, start, conduct and complete a project successfully and is important to my career now, because everyone at Apple is responsible for working on one or two product features each year.