From Intern to Full-Time Engineer
Meet Jun Jie, who joined Knovel as a software engineering intern and, a year on, is a full-time software engineer on the team building an AI assurance platform.
Jun Jie’s career started with a question he kept following. What can you build with AI, and who does it help? That question took him from a student hackathon to an internship at Knovel, and eventually into a full-time engineering role. It is the kind of story we like to tell, because it shows what an internship here can become when someone brings real curiosity and the willingness to figure things out.
His Journey In
Jun Jie was drawn to AI early, seeing how computer vision, speech and generative AI were reshaping industries in ways traditional web development could not. The sheer range of what you could do with it pulled him in.
Two experiences turned that interest into direction. At the National AI Student Challenge 2025 hackathon, his team won, giving him his first taste of building AI applications rather than only studying them. An internship at AI Singapore took him further and showed him what working on AI really looks like. When he went looking for his next internship, Knovel felt like a natural fit.
“AI is at the core of everything we do here. At Knovel, I get to work on a range of problems and domains rather than being steered in one lane. It felt like the right place to keep growing as an engineer”
Ang Jun Jie, Software engineering
Learning to Work with Ambiguity
The hardest thing Jun Jie had to get used to was working without a clear map and having to be resourceful to find a solution.
Sitting in that uncertainty was uncomfortable at first, and he often wondered whether his approach was good enough. Over time, he learned to break a problem down and keep moving even before the full picture had formed. Now, when something unfamiliar lands on his desk, he meets it with far more confidence.
From Proofs of Concept to a Real Product
Jun Jie started with building proofs of concept to testing ideas. Now, he works on a product that clients are interested in, which brings a different level of responsibility. He is more independent and more confident in his own judgement.
How he works has changed, too. With generative AI coding tools taking on much of the grunt work, the job is less about writing every line of code, more about designing solutions and reviewing what comes back. Learning to think at that higher level has been his real area of growth.
Knovel supported his growth by encouraging him to explore new areas of software development. The freedom to work on project assignments aligned with his interests and learning objectives gave him both motivation and a sense of ownership, further solidifying his career aspirations.
The Project He’s Proudest Of
Ask Jun Jie what he is most proud of, and he points to DeepAssure, the product he works on with the team. It is a platform that helps organisations assure their AI systems and confirm they are ready for deployment. He has been on it since the early days, helping shape its design and build out some of its features.
The work means something to him beyond the code. As he puts it, “because Knovel partners with companies across very different domains to solve real problems, the challenges stay interesting, and there is always something new to learn.”
What the Culture Feels Like Day to Day
What struck Jun Jie was the energy of the people around him. He observed a trait the engineers here have, they are always exploring new tools and tests them in their side projects before applying them in the projects they build for clients.
Being around people who have built motivates Jun Jie to do the same. He has recently started his own side project, and while it is still a work in progress, he looks forward to it. At Knovel, that drive to build is not a distraction from the job. It is what keeps the work sharp.
“Innovation is the value that resonates most with me. A big part of my work at Knovel is finding cutting-edge tech and working out how to apply it to something real. That suits me, because I’m curious by nature and I like seeing how far I can take an idea.”.”
Ang Jun Jie, Software engineering
His Advice to the Next Talent
Be ready to wear many hats and get comfortable with ambiguity. At a fast-growing company you will be thrown at different domains, technologies and problems, so take initiative, ask questions and learn fast.
Jun Jie has been part of the DeepAssure team since his internship, building the product alongside our engineers and Chief AI Architect, and he is now one of the team’s most knowledgeable engineers on AI assurance. That is what an open mind can lead to here. If you are a student or fresh graduate who wants to grow as a software engineer, and you want to do work that matters from day one, Knovel could be the place for you.
Knovel Engineering: Your Trusted AI Solutions Partner
Knovel Engineering is a Singapore-based Enterprise AI partner that builds, assures and deploys real-world systems for government and highly regulated entities.
It operates across the entire AI value chain from infrastructure orchestration (compute, GPU, and edge), data engineering, and model development to evaluation, deployment, and AI application delivery. Its capabilities span conversational AI, multimodal intelligence, and domain-specific data platforms.
Curious about joining Knovel? Find out about our available positions here.
