2007 Alumknight lands job with tech firm GoPro

A 2007 Mount Carmel School AlumKnight, Christian Lam, recently landed a job with GoPro, the international tech company known for its portable cameras. Lam secured the job after also earning a rare internship with the tech giant.

Mount Carmel School AlumKnight, Christian Lam has also kept busy as a cyclist, competing in several cycling competitions around the world, the most recent of which included GoPro as a co-sponsor. (Contributed Photo)

Lam’s official position with GoPro is that of analytics developer, which requires tremendous technical skill. His position has him developing applications that allow businesses to visualize their data with dashboards containing charts and graphs that change in real time. In the position, he also develops frameworks for monitoring the quality of that data, for ensuring that the data used in the dashboards is complete and accurate. To fulfill these duties, he has learned to utilize numerous coding languages, including Structured Query Language (SQL), Python, JavaScript, Bash Scripting, Tableau, HTML, and CSS.

Despite his technical expertise, Lam had not originally planned on pursuing information technology while enrolled at San Francisco State University. However, Lam credited his parents with supporting him.

“I am very fortunate and thankful for having parents that believed in me and supported the choices I made,” Lam said. “I changed my major from Anthropology to Information Systems three years into my college career. The two majors are completely unrelated so the result was me having to do another two and a half years of schooling with challenging projects and all-nighters.”

That decision to switch majors, however, proved fruitful. As Lam put it, “I feel it was the best decision I have made thus far. The hard work definitely paid off.”

Lam also credited his alma mater with preparing him for his job. In particular, “The one class that I feel has helped me most throughout both my time in college and in the workforce was public speaking taught by Mr. G. The skills I gained from his public speaking class also crossed over into doing presentations for class and interviewing skills.”

The “Mr. G” Lam referred to is the school president, Galvin Deleon Guerrero, who expressed great pride over Lam’s accomplishment. “His success reminds us all to live by the mantra I have posted on my office wall: Do what you love and love what you do.”

Beyond his success at GoPro, Lam has also kept busy as a cyclist, competing in several cycling competitions around the world, the most recent of which included GoPro as a co-sponsor.

Lam joins GoPro just as the company is expanding, with its stock surging 30 percent to $31.34 per share in its trading debut on the Nasdaq on June 26 earlier this year.

GoPro develops, manufactures and markets high-definition personal cameras, often used in extreme action video photography. They are known for being compact, lightweight, rugged, wearable or mountable in unusual places such as outside a quadcopter, planes, cars, boats, bicycle and motorcycle helmets or army tanks. According to the GoPro company site, “GoPro helps people capture and share their lives’ most meaningful experiences with others—to celebrate them together.” (MCS)