Behind Shanghai's key arterial routes stands Xu Saiying, a road engineer at the Shanghai Municipal Engineering Design Institute. She recently led the overall design for the Zhoudeng Expressway, a crucial 17.2-kilometer elevated corridor linking urban Shanghai to the Eastern Hub. Crossing four towns in central Pudong, the complex project required three years of preliminary research to balance metro crossings, pipeline relocations, and structural preservation.

Xu’s career began 19 years ago when she left her rural home in Huzhou to attend a Shanghai vocational school. Through relentless practice, she won first place in a national CAD drafting competition in 2011, earning an internship and a rare exception to join the elite design institute as a secondary school graduate. While working, she earned her civil engineering degree from Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Today, having contributed to iconic infrastructure like the Yan'an Road BRT and the Huangpu River public space expansion, Xu proves that vocational education offers a powerful pathway to shaping a world-class megacity.