I was nervous to say in my interview that I wanted my work to make an impact at the Daily Bruin.

As cliche as it sounds, I saw something special about my role as a software engineer at the Daily Bruin. Coming from a non-journalism background, at times it’s hard to describe to those in the office what your role at the paper is as an Online editor.

As I came to learn, progress in the Online section is not quantitatively measured by the number of GitHub commits, but rather qualitatively measured by user experience and feedback.

It was a concept that I struggled with as a contributor. I often found myself overcomplicating a feature’s development when the best solution was to keep the user experience simple. But these principles and technical skills in full-stack development that I learned through the Daily Bruin have shaped me into the engineer I am today.

Transitioning into my editorship term, I was given the keys to work with the large-scale infrastructure powering our internal tools. I’ll never forget the first time I was in charge of killing the Kubernetes pods to restart the Kerckhoff application. I questioned whether that singular terminal command could halt the entire operation of the paper, but thankfully it didn’t.

As an editor, I went on to use Kubernetes many times over, while overhauling and developing new features for existing and new Internal Tools – many of which have been neglected for over half a decade – and working on real-world production applications. On paper, I can say that I led my team in completely redesigning our design notes tool Buzz, launching an entirely new design documentation tool Woof and adding new features and bug fixes to our social media application Meow.

But an accomplishment more worth celebrating is the community that I’ve rebuilt within my section. This year it was my obsession to create an environment where my contributors can grow as engineers while striving towards a common goal of making a difference for those who work at the paper.

And yet, I often wondered what drove me to work so hard in the first place. The answer is simple: the editor community.

Never have I felt so invested in the work I did because the community of editors, staff and contributors really cared about the paper and its mission. I truly believed the work I did mattered. I could really see the difference I made by pushing new releases of Internal Tools. People would talk to me at the office about how the new Buzz user interface is such a pleasure to use or would thank me for a Kerckhoff hot-fix on short notice to keep the multimedia workflow running.

At times, I was eaten alive by the workload that editorship asked of me. I questioned whether the sacrifice of not seeing the sun in the windowless office to attend the endless meetings on the weekdays was worth it.

But whenever I had any doubt, I reminded myself about the special something that I saw in my role: utilizing my technical skillset as a software engineer to empower and give a voice to the Daily Bruin creators and writers through digital media. This was the impact I always believed my work could make.

None of this would be possible without the editors and friends who have been there for me throughout my journey.

Thank you to Matthew Yu, the 2023-2024 Internal Tools director for believing in me from the very start when I interviewed for the internship position.

Thank you to my fellow 2024-2025 design editors, Shrey Chaganlal, whom I met at -29- last year, Crystal Tompkins and Tyler Cho, some of my first friends at The Bruin, and my biggest supporters in the office, always swift with getting UI/UX designs for my team and helping me test new releases to accelerate the development of new tools.

Thank you to my DOES (Data, Online, Enterprise, Social) editor squad, especially 2024-2025 Social Media director Mahika Saoji, and 2024-2025 Enterprise editor Dylan Tzung, who were so integral to my time at the paper.

Whether it was hanging out on a random Sunday, or planning our next DOES social event, they were always there to make sure I had a life outside of the office and to remind me that we were all in it together. I’ll always cherish the relentless jokes about how “everything in Online is cooked”.

Lastly, thank you to my 2024-2025 Online editor family in Donny, Ed and Sakshi. Together, we rebuilt the Online section from the ground up. Bringing back Daily Bruin traditions like -28-, increasing engagement for our contributors through Trader Joe’s snacks and socials and building a community for our future engineers to grow in. I can’t thank y’all enough for always listening to me and believing in our mission for our section!

Joining the Daily Bruin under the Internal Tools section has been the most rewarding experience of my time at UCLA. It challenged me to work with a community of like-minded, work hard, play hard individuals and gave me lifelong friends to cherish the best moments of UCLA with – while shaping me into the leader, software engineer and person that I am today.

I am proud to say in my -30- column that my work did make an impact for the Daily Bruin.

Tyler Tran was an Online Internal Tools contributor 2023-2024 and Online Internal Tools director 2024-2025.