But I realized that if I were to talk about it from my own experience, it would be a little bit outdated because I was only there upon deal about two years ago.

So he said, I decided to interview a friend of mine Jane knew, who is currently a software engineer.

A ghoul.

In this interview, we talked about things like, What's he like to work there?

Her advice on getting a job at companies like Google on her experience of being a female softer engineer in this male dominated industry?

Eso Here's interview.

I hope you enjoy.

All right.

So thanks so much for coming here.

Thank you for having me.

Yeah, I appreciate it.

Um, let's just get started with, you know, a basic question.

So just cause you're engineers yourself for us, Yeah.

Hi, everyone.

I'm Jay and I must offer engineer a Google in the Waterloo Kitchener office.

Um, I'm gonna go for a year now, and I'm on the cloud health care team.

Great.

Um, so let's get study with your education.

So I understand that you were in the engineering science program at the University of Toronto, not computer size, but eventually you got into Cody.

You got your first coating into shit.

So how was what was the process like?

Yeah.

So, um, so I guess I'll talk a little bit about war engineering.

Science is now.

So this program is kind of like they want to give you two years of foundational studies in all sorts of engineering, all different disciplines.

And after two years, you can pick which option you want to go into.

So essentially, you can pick electrical, computer engineering, animal space, civil engineering and stuff like that.

And for me, after first year, I wasn't completely sure which option I want to pick after two years.

But I was kind of narrowing down towards electrical computer engineering, and I wanted to see if I could get an internship just to see how it's actually like working as a software engineer and see you've actually like it.

I want to pursue it for the rest of my studies.

So that's when I started to look around.

I was also thinking about moving to California for a little bit.

So that's when I started to look at software internship opening in California.

It just so happened that someone odor in my program told me about engineering practicum program A googol.

It's basically a software internship.

Gear two words first and second year students at universities and I was told that it's not really expected that you have a lot of coding experience or no so many data structures to get into engineering practicum.

So that's when I just applied and I want to take my chance at it.

And I mean, obviously after I got the interview and I spent a lot of time studying for the interviews, But in the end I got it.

And that was my first engineering internship, the Google one.

Yeah, right for me.

It was a combination of cracking the code interview and also just talking to up per years.

Ah, lot of people in my program already had a lot of interviewing experience with big companies, so they kind of told me what are the common type of questions and what what are usually the data structures and algorithms they will ask you?

Interviews, especially I introduced, would like first and second year students, and that's mostly how I got my practice cool on Dhe.

So eventually you went from just interning there, Thio working there full time.

What was your transition like there?

That's actually a pretty easy process.

Usually, I would say not just for Google, for a lot of big companies once you've intern there, especially if you've interned there multiple times a zloty, as you've done while your projects, they're most likely to give you a return offer at the end of the internship.

So for my case, actually, I actually didn't even need to do additional interviews.

I got offer for full time position When I was in fourth year, I did some comparisons between other companies, but in the end, I decided to go is my fit.

So that's how I signed a full time offer.

I go go nice on, uh, would it work on a soft, edible practical, eh?

So I'm currently on the Cloud health care team.

It's a pretty new tune, so probably not a lot of you have heard of it.

Basically, we're building healthcare solutions on Google Cloud Platform.

Usually, we say, Google's mission is to organize the world's information and making universal week accessible and use useful for us in particular, it's more that we are organizing the world's health care information and make a accessible, useful and, most importantly, secure.

Um, I can't talk about a lot of the products that we're working on right now, but some of the stuff that we've already made public include a fire, a p I.

So that's for medical health records dot com a p I.

So that's for medical imaging records.

And we also have, like, machine learning solutions for healthcare data and just ah, lot of stuff around that, right?

So the idea is usually using Google Cloud, too.

Store medical data or maybe do something with it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So a lot of our mission is about data interoperability.

And also how to help patients and providers with their experience Overall.

Okay.

Uh uh, on, uh, could you tell us about what you're doing?

The life is like working there.

Yeah.

Um, I'm just us offer engineer right now.

So my day in the left base.

Pretty simple, I would say so.

We have a free meals ago, as probably a lot of you know.

So I usually go in the morning and have breakfast.

And then I also get my morning coffee after that because we also have a barista bar a Google on Ben while I drink my coffee.

I usually check my e mails from last night because sometimes, like you run things the day before, you want to just check some updates are coming from yesterday and then after the in the morning.

My team also has a daily standup.

So during the samba, usually everybody gives updates about what they've been working out and what they're planning to do next.

And then we should go to lunch together as a team and then in the afternoon.

That's where the bulk of working time is.

So it's mostly coding and then some team meetings or just product updates in general.

Um, we also have a lot of like activities.

I go go so those air usually towards the end of the afternoon.

So we have a lot of pep talks hosted at Google Waterloo, and we also have a weekly T G i F.

Thank God it's almost Friday, hosted towards the end of afternoon on Thursdays, where the whole office, kind of get together and mingle and have some snacks and drinks.

And then afterwards I get dinner.

I could go.

That's that's my day.

I go, Go.

Yeah, eh.

So it sounds like you have, like, a lot of events happening, but when do you actually get stuff done?

Cody, I think like, as I said, I usually a lot of the time in the afternoon you is for you to get your work done.

Um and I would say, like everyone I go is really mindful about how they spend their time at those events.

So, like for myself, particularly, if I'm really, really busy with something, then I just I would skip those events just so I can get my work done.

But then, if the progress of work is a little bit slower than I would look up like, Is there any workshops that I want to do?

Where is there anything I want to learn?

And that's when I would participate a little more of those things.

Nice.

So you're being working there for one year, two years, one year, one year.

So, like, after working there for one year, do you have like, any long term goals there that you won't achieve, like either a Google or maybe somewhere else.

I have to say, I haven't really thought about that a lot.

I think for me as a pretty junior's offer developer.

I obviously want to spend more time learning different technologies and getting to know our cold case better on Dhe.

Then later on.

I hope that in a few years I will be able to, I guess, take projects a bigger scope and design things at a bigger scale.

So I guess that will be my short Kunkle.

Nice on Dhe.

What's your favorite part of worth?

Your Google?

Um, I would say my favorite part.

If the culture I go, I think it probably sounds really cliche to a lot of people.

But that's actually one of the big reasons why I picked to go back to go for a full time.

Um, I just think in general, everyone Google is like super respectful and just the whole environment just feels very inclusive to me.

I feel like even if you do feel like there's any aggression or work or anything like that, there's like so many channels where you can like boys your concerns and get your health.

That's my purse.

That's been my personal experience, and that's just something that I really like.

How does it compare working at Google versus working at other companies like I don't really have that much experience working at other companies, But as you said, I interned at Intel before, but it was actually all terror when I was there, and then it was acquired by Intel.

Wow, I was, They're for the internship.

So those two are actually kind of hard to compare because Al Terra was a pretty hardware focused company.

It's a PGA company where a school go is like pretty self for a centric.

So that's one of the differences.

I feel like a Google because everything is focused around software.

People like move faster and projects move a little faster because, you know, it's just coding, right?

But then at companies at intact sir, all terror.

When I was working there, it was more like because a lot of things air centered around there, a PGA rollout and stuff like that, things move a little slower, and then all the software's have to kind of move around a hardware progress.

Another small thing that I also noticed is that I feel like people in the suffering industry and also particularly at Google, move around a loss.

So then you see a lot of, I guess young faces and then a lot of people haven't been agro for that long, whereas at all terror And I would say probably a lot of other harder cos people stay there for a lot longer.

So you see, like, really senior people who have been there for a really long time, so they really know what they're doing.

They know, like the suffer system inside out and stuff like that.

So that's another difference and just kind of curious.

Is there anything you don't like about working at Google?

Um, I have to say, there is nothing that would come to my mind right now.

I think overall, I'm pretty happy with the working environment on projects and everything.

I mean, that's why I'm still there.

But the next question is, do you have any advice on getting a software developer job at companies like Google?

Um, yeah.

So I would say, uh, my advice would probably more be more gear two words people, I guess seeing universities still because I haven't been out of university for that long.

But I feel like in general, if you want to work at companies like Google after you graduate, you would wanna start looking at doing projects and kind of just demonstrate your skills and also learn more things while you're in the university.

There's obviously a lot of ways that you can do this.

You can apply for internships like I did.

You can do side projects.

If you have any ideas, you can also contribute to open source projects.

I think that's like a really big thing right now.

A lot of people are talking about it.

Yeah, And then also, just if you if you have the option to take more software courses, definitely do that and then try to do wow in your course projects.

I think off them will help you.

Not a job at Google after you graduate.

Okay, um, one thing that I sort of like here about a lot about people working at companies like Google and procedures cos is they sometimes have pulls third syndrome.

Have you had anything like that before?

Yeah.

Of course, I would say, probably there's not that many people will have an experience that for me.

I guess.

In particular, one thing that I always feel is that I feel like I haven't done enough for.

I just haven't produced enough results and stuff like that.

Um, and I got, like, super inches about it, I guess, earlier on, when I first joined Google, and then I started to talk to my manager and other people about it, and then they sort of were giving me advice to view my work from a technical perspective.

So, for example, I can ask other people what they think of my work.

I cannot my managers or peers for feedback.

And I can also just look at the progress of my project and comparing it to say, our team, proud team objectives or quarterly objectives.

And and then, if you do it that way, then you will have a more objective of you off how you're doing turns your work, and then for me, that's when I realized all like I'm doing fine.

Like, I'm meeting all the objectives.

I'm meeting that line, so I'm doing fine.

So, um, right now I I'm feeling like, less anxious now, I'm pretty happy about the progress that I'm making.

So Yeah.

All right.

Uh, is there anything you can tell us about your experience of being a female software engineer in this male dominated industry?

Yeah.

So I have to say my experience has being mostly positive.

I think are being really fortunate to, uh, I guess even for my classing engineering science, everyone was really supportive.

And then after I started to do internships and after I started working full time I Google, I feel like the environment is overall very inclusive and very supportive overall.

But I have to say there's definitely small aggressions that I experienced as a female software engineer.

So, for example, one of the things that I heard I really stuck with me was that when I got my first engineering practical internship at Google, some of my, uh classmates told me I only got it because I was a girl.

At that time, I didn't really think too much of the but the leader all.

I felt a little bit heard about it.

But then again, I started to look.

Look at my guess.