Mentor Spotlight: Tom Jin

UBC Computer Science has been running its award-winning Tri-Mentoring Program since 2001, matching industry or faculty mentors with a 3rd or 4th year student as senior mentee and a 2nd year student as junior mentee. To celebrate the program’s 25th anniversary this year, the department is featuring a “Mentor Spotlight” series, highlighting the various mentors who have provided over 3300 students with immeasurable advice and help over the years.  

This month, we are featuring Tom Jin, a UBC Computer Science alum (BSc’16) and Science and Engineering Manager at Amazon. Tom started as a mentor in the Tri-Mentoring Program in 2017 and has mentored students for the last 9 years. In addition to being a mentor, Tom also regularly comes back to the department as a panel speaker, interviewer, and representative for Amazon and has been involved in various career and alumni events throughout the years.

In this interview, Tom shares his experience in the Tri-Mentoring program, why he enjoys being a mentor, and how his career journey shaped how he mentors students.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

What was your journey into computer science like?

Throughout high school, I was really interested in building websites and applications. I knew I wanted to do something with that when I went to UBC. I started with computer science, but at the same time, I really liked the application part of computer science. For my undergrad, I did a combined honours program in microbiology and computer science, which was, at the time, still a fairly uncommon program. I did half my courses in computer science and half my courses in microbiology, and there was a thesis component at the end. So I got to do a lot of research in that kind of joint space. I worked at St. Paul’s Hospital on a project exploring whether differences in the lung microbiome were linked to chronic lung disease, using machine learning to help analyze the data. And so opportunities like that, I really loved. I didn't think I would enjoy it as much, but I ended up really falling in love with medical and healthcare applications of computer science. 

What inspired you to participate in the Tri Mentoring Program as a mentee?

When I was in first or second year, I really wanted to get involved in as much as I could. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do, and I thought the Tri-Mentoring program would be a really cool opportunity to meet people from different fields and to explore that. That helped shape my decision to apply for certain co-op programs like at the BC Cancer Agency. I chose to work at an academic research center so I had both perspectives of working in a big company and at a research lab to see what I really wanted to do. 

I loved my experience as a mentee in the program. I put down my interests and I got paired with some really cool people. One of my industry mentors was from a startup, and I got some really cool perspectives on how startups work. I realized that it wasn't just a linear journey and I learned a lot from people from different walks of life.

How did you get inspired to become a mentor in the Tri-Mentoring program after you graduated?

I really enjoyed the Tri-Mentoring program. During school, I faced some tough career decisions and I wanted to help others through the same kind of decision-making in their life. I also like staying in touch with students and being able to see how the field is evolving, what the challenges they are facing, and how learning has changed with the rise in generative AI. If I'm just here in the industry and working on my own projects, I don't necessarily see that from an outsider perspective per se. 

What do you enjoy most about being a mentor?

It’s truly rewarding to be able to meet students from diverse backgrounds and mentor them along their journeys. Being able to come to events and participate is really cool because I get a chance to share my advice. 

The events are also great for making connections with other mentors. I meet more Amazon colleagues at Tri-Mentoring events than I do at the company itself, since there are thousands of people at my work, and I don't really get a chance to talk or meet with people from other departments a lot. So the Tri-Mentoring Program is also a really cool opportunity to bring people together and connect with others and see how other organizations operate.

Can you tell me more about where your computer science degree has taken you and how this has impacted how you mentored students?

So I did my undergrad at UBC, and then I went to Amazon. During my tenure at Amazon, I also did a master's degree in AI. I think that was a really interesting experience for me because it was right before the rise in AI, in 2019. A lot of my students debated on whether they should do grad school or go to industry. Because I went through both experiences, I can look at it from both perspectives. Doing a master's on the side really helped me broaden my own network of people because your classmates are people from other companies and other fields. It helped me figure out what I wanted and how I wanted to take my career further. 

I tell my students that this is one of the career paths that you could potentially take — you could do both industry and academia, or you can pick one path and switch later on. I think a lot of students think they’re locked into one career path after they graduate. But there will be a lot of doors that open up, and you can always go back to school, or you can find opportunities like what I did. You can balance your career.

What is a piece of advice you typically give computer science students?

In the age of AI, people are always saying that their agent is going to take their job, but I don't believe so. I think you have to be prepared —  software engineering and the industry will definitely change, and the way you approach your job will change. You're not necessarily just sitting there and coding.

But the engineering part of the job is always required because you're making connections between what the customers want or what's needed in this particular field. So becoming an expert in another field or another area and being that bridge to connect two fields together will absolutely help you. For example, if I’m building applications for doctors — being able to understand medical concepts or how doctors operate and being able to talk to them — that will pay dividends in the long run because a machine can make the code, but they’re not the ones using the services in the end. So you can bridge fields together and harness AI to help you build applications for doctors, pilots, or firefighters  — that is what I feel like the future is going to be.