Kevin Wong has built his career across the full spectrum of tech: big companies with massive scale, startups with massive ownership, and the tradeoffs that come with each. At Abnormal, he stopped having to choose. In 18 months, he's scaled from managing one engineering team to two, helped scale and lead the new iteration of the Waterloo Intern Program from the ground up, and discovered what growth looks like when a company invests in its people as aggressively as it invests in its product.

The Tradeoff That Didn't Exist

Before Abnormal, Kevin's career followed a familiar pattern for experienced engineers. At large tech companies, he worked on products at massive scale, but the company was so big that his contributions felt like a small slice of the pie. At startups, he had ownership and broad impact, but younger companies brought chaos: infrastructure still catching up, product-market fit still in question.

"Abnormal hit the sweet spot between the two," Kevin said.

He joined for two reasons. First, the mission. He wanted to work somewhere making a positive impact. Second, the rare intersection of ownership and scale. He knew he'd be able to come in and make an impact right away while still building products that serve thousands of organizations.

What stood out from his earliest days was a mindset he hadn't encountered before. "Folks embodied the phrase, 'nothing is ever somebody else's problem,'" he said. "People took pride in their craft and their systems and would do whatever it takes to make things a little bit better."

One Team, Then Two

About a year into his time at Abnormal, a reorg created an opportunity for Kevin to lead a second engineering team. He went from managing Message Remediation to also leading Message Infra, doubling his scope and the number of engineers depending on his direction.

He didn't hesitate. "It was something I was excited about. It was an opportunity to mentor and grow more engineers, and it also meant leadership trusted me with more responsibility. That was incredibly rewarding."

But more scope meant changing how he operated. He couldn't stay in the weeds on granular technical details across both teams, and he couldn't monitor live system performance in real time the way he used to.

"There's only so much time available every day, so you have to be strategic in where you spend it," he explained. "I had to implement the right processes for the team to surface the information I needed to make good decisions for them."

That shift forced Kevin to build something he values even more than technical depth: trust. "I'm proud that I'm able to trust my team and trust that they're able to help me through this process," he said. "Trust is incredibly important here."

AI helped close the gap, too. As a manager who isn't writing code daily, Kevin needed a way to get up to speed on Message Infra's services, systems, and documentation without pulling his engineers off their work. "I used AI extensively to pick up all the context on the team's services," he said. "It was like having an onboarding buddy. That made a big difference in getting me up to speed in a timely manner."

Full Circle at Waterloo

Outside of his engineering teams, Kevin helps lead Abnormal's Waterloo Intern Program. As a University of Waterloo graduate himself, the work carries personal weight.

"I owe a lot of my career success to the internships I was lucky enough to be part of," he said. "Whenever I've had the opportunity to help shape an internship program, I've always been eager to give back and help grow the next generation."

Kevin's advice to early-career engineers comes down to two factors: ownership and growth. "Is the environment you're in one that lets you sink your teeth into a meaty technical project? And are you surrounded by mentors who can help you build a strong foundation for your career?" he said. "At Abnormal, the answer to both of those is a resounding yes."

The proof showed up in the results. Every intern in the Summer 2025 cohort accepted their full-time return offer. Kevin credits the culture.

"We show interns the impact they'll have as a full-time employee and give them a glimpse of how fast they'll be able to grow," he said. "With the rise of AI across the industry, we've shown that we're committed to keeping our teams at the forefront. That's an exciting place to be as a new grad."

A Growth Culture That Follows Through

What ties Kevin's story together is the throughline of investment. Abnormal didn't give him a title and leave him to figure it out. Leadership identified his performance, expanded his scope, and supported his transition.

"Leadership goes out of their way to ensure folks are aligned with their career goals, especially high performers who've shown they can take on more," he said. "Whether you're an IC or a manager, Abnormal makes sure the right people are being invested in."

That investment takes different forms depending on where you are. For an IC, it might mean leading a cross-division project. For a manager, it might mean a second or third team. For Kevin, it meant all of the above in 18 months.

"I've always felt Abnormal's investment in its own people was something the company did a lot better than others."

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