What does it take to navigate a career switch and build a path across countries? Nolen Dao, a participant in the MaivenPoint Tech Talent Training and Work-Study Programme, shares his journey — from starting with no technical background in Vietnam to becoming a Junior Business Analyst at AvePoint Singapore. Here’s how that journey unfolded, through his perspective.
Around this time last year, I was still a media producer with no coding background, no computer science degree, and only a strong inclination toward technology and business. Today, I'm writing this as a junior business analyst at AvePoint, splitting my time between client work and a Master's in Data Science in Singapore. This is the story of how I made that transition, but more than that, it's about the programme, the people, and the journey that carried me along the way.
The Leap Before the Leap
Before any of this, I spent seven years in media and video production, eventually leading a creative team through scripts, shot lists, and the late nights (and lots of weekends) that come with delivering for clients. I loved the craft. But one question that I kept returning to was: “Could I be building something with a longer shelf life than a single campaign?”
I'd always had a pull towards product management and business, not as a fallback plan, but out of real curiosity about how products get built and why some succeed while others quietly fade.
In 2007, Apple introduced iPhone, a breakthrough device that disrupted the whole industry. Even way before that, Apple had already reimagined personal music with the iPod and set the benchmark for UX/UI, helping bring intuitive graphical interfaces into the mainstream. I genuinely wanted to build a product with a similar design philosophy: intuitive, user-friendly, and satisfying to use.
So I made a decision — one that wasn't impulsive, but carefully considered and not without its share of nerves: I quit my job without exactly knowing where it could lead. I spent the next stretch unlearning old habits and picking up new fundamentals through courses and self-study, with no guarantee any of it would lead anywhere. It did: I landed a spot in MaivenPoint's first Tech Talent Programme cohort in Ho Chi Minh City, training on the business analyst track. That offer letter is where everything really begins.
Inside MaivenPoint’s Tech Talent Programme
We kicked off in mid-November 2025 with an orientation in the office, the kind where you can tell people actually like coming to work. Some of the leadership team had flown in just for the occasion, which told me early on that the company genuinely cared about this programme. It was also the first time I met the rest of the cohort: final-year students from universities like UIT, FPT, and Vietnam National University, a few with degrees from the US and Europe, and others like me coming in from completely different industries. We came from very different backgrounds, but we were all there for the same reason — and that mattered more.
The Tech Talent Programme itself was intentionally broad — designed to expose us to business project management, requirement analysis, and support engineering through sessions led by experienced practitioners.
Our team working on a prototype and kick-off meeting for 2nd sprint of the Agile project!
Early on, I often questioned why a future business analyst needed to understand a project manager’s workflow or how a support engineer creates a ticket. But it eventually made sense: When you only understand your own slice of a project, it's easy to make decisions that seem sound in isolation but create downstream challenges. Seeing the full picture fundamentally changes how you work, enabling more effective communication and stronger collaboration.
More Than Theoretical Learning
It wasn't all theory, either. We managed to draft project timelines, run kickoff meetings, sit through requirements-gathering workshops, and receive real, honest feedback. We also learned from guest speakers who shared how the industry is evolving.
The part I think about most isn't on any certificate; it's the people I went through it with — those who laughed through the easy days and helped push the rest of us through the hard ones. Three months went by faster than any of us expected, and by the time we picked up our completion certificates, the programme had quietly turned a room of strangers into something closer to a team.
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From Trainee in Vietnam to Junior BA in Singapore
Finishing the training programme was not an end, but a door into the next chapter. Several of us moved into junior business analyst, project management, and engineering roles at AvePoint, the parent company behind MaivenPoint, at its newly opened research and development office in Ho Chi Minh City. It didn't feel like stepping into the unknown and more like continuing something we had already started together — just with higher stakes.
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A few months in, I was honoured to be offered a place in the next batch heading to Singapore for MaivenPoint’s Work-Study Programme, which is a full-time business analyst role paired with a Master's in Data Science at SUTD, which commenced in May 2026. This is the part that I’m most grateful for. AvePoint handled the heavy logistics, paperwork, and visas — and even helped us find a flat to share. If you've ever tried to move countries on your own, you probably know how much that means.
The balance isn’t easy. I promised every interviewer I had: Holding down a full-time business analyst role while sitting through a master's programme in the evenings is, frankly, a real test of time management and stress tolerance. But that tension is also the whole point of a work-study route:
You're not just learning theory — you're applying it under real constraints, immediately, with no buffer between lecture and deadline. I've learned more in a few months of doing both at once than I expected to in a year of either alone.
Living in Singapore has been an adjustment, a different rhythm from my beloved Saigon. What's made it feel like home is who I share it with: A flat full of fellow trainees who, on a good evening, will fill the kitchen with the noise of laughter and the smell of our staple Vietnamese meals. These are just enough to make the distance between two cities feel a little less distant and more like home.
What to Expect on This Path
If you're considering applying to the next training cohort or weighing whether a work-study route abroad is worth the trade-offs, here's the honest answer: I still don't have it all figured out.
A year ago, I had no tech background and a lot of uncertainty. I'm still early in this journey — still learning, still finding myself out of my depth.
What changed is that I'm not doing it alone, which made all the difference. The MaivenPoint Academy programmes gave me a foundation, the company gave me a path, and the people around me turned the whole thing into a journey worth taking. If that's the kind of leap you're considering, I'd say it's worth it, and you will be amazed by the person you will turn into.
