2 Years at Buka
How It All Started
Today marks exactly two years since I joined Bukalapak (January 20th, 2020). Looking back, it’s been quite a ride full of lessons and amazing experiences.
Before this, I worked as an IT developer at an FMCG company for about a year. But I wanted more—more freedom to experiment, more room to build things that matter.
A friend who had just joined Bukalapak as a mobile dev told me how even the smallest things he did could impact millions of users. That inspired me to give it a shot. So, I polished my resume, submitted it, went through one test and two intense interviews, and boom—I got the offer.
Three weeks later, I found myself stepping into Bukalapak on my first day, ready for a whole new journey.
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| Onboarding with new joiners |
On my second day, my PM asked me to fix a bug on the BPJS payment page. But instead of just patching it, the seniors encouraged me to rewrite the whole thing using Vue (which I’d never used before 😅). A few days later, it worked, and my PM said, “Nice, deploy it!” That’s when I realized—my code just helped millions of people pay for their health insurance more easily.
Teamwork Vibes
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| Hack-a-Fun |
Five months in, Bukalapak hosted an internal hackathon called Hack-a-Fun. It wasn’t just for engineers—everyone from any team could join. They also ran a testathon and designathon. The whole point? Have fun and innovate.
There were games, food, and tons of creative energy. I joined a team and built a bot that could order coffee through Telegram.
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| My first Telegram bot |
Speak Up, Share More
Not long after I joined, the frontend team held weekly sharing sessions—like mini internal tech talks. At the end, new engineers were introduced.
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| Introducing ourselves at the FE weekly |
And it’s not just frontend. Every team has its own tech talks. We’re encouraged to speak up, share ideas, and back them with data—not to argue, but to grow and solve problems together.
Customers First
Bukalapak’s mission is to solve real problems for real people. No matter our role, we’re expected to keep customers in mind.
Even as an engineer, I’m reminded that our users might be our own parents, friends, or neighbors. If someone complains about a transaction—even if it’s not in our area—we help escalate it. That’s the mindset.
Always Pushing
We use agile and scrum here. At first, I was super confused by all the terms: standups, grooming, retrospectives, sprint planning…
But I picked it up over time. The important bits:
- A sprint = 2 weeks
- Sprint planning = we pick what to work on
- Daily standups = quick updates
- Retro = reflect and improve
- Sprint review = demo what’s done
- Grooming = prep future tasks
It’s all about improving every cycle.
Try, Fail, Repeat
One thing I love about Bukalapak: we’re encouraged to experiment. Failing isn’t punished—it’s a chance to learn.
Bukalapak hires great engineers from top schools and diverse backgrounds, including overseas grads. But the real perks here aren’t just flexible hours or nice salaries.
The biggest perks? A strong culture of learning, freedom to try, support even when you mess up, and teammates you can grow with.
That’s two years in a nutshell. Here’s to learning more, failing better, and building cooler stuff. 🚀