Takeaways

Today’s panel featured two speakers, Kathyleen Beveridge and Kris Porter, who talked about their journey in the field of project management and software engineering. One thing that struck out to me in this event was the importance of computer science and how it is applicable to many other fields, such as business/finance. As senior director of marketing, Kathyleen spends time communicating with developers to create products that customers would want. This brings me to the next point that I found really interesting, which is that the similarities between HP, Qualcomm, and Thermo Fisher Scientific is that all of them serve to help create technology and products that will help people (as can be seen in their mission statements). I think this is really cool because this means that as a software engineer, you get to be part of the effort that helps improve the lives of people around the world. Something else that really stood out to me was Kris’s emphasis of continuous learning. I think this is especially relevant because our modern world is extremely fast paced, and to be caught up, it’s necessary to keep learning and growing in knowledge, especially in programming when things are continuously changing and inventions are rapidly being produced. Besides, it’s also fun to learn new things ;). Altogether, today’s panel allowed me to learn about software engineering in the real world and what to expect in the workplace.

Notes that I took during the event

Speaker: Kathyleen Beveridge

  • Santa Clara university (bachelor), MBA at USC
  • Maya Angelou: My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.
  • Investment banker at Wells Fargo, stock broker -> switched to high tech at HP, then to Qualcomm, then Thermo Fisher Scientific (biotech)
  • Similarities in mission statements between companies: Creating technology, products, and services that helps people and creating what people around the world want
  • Qualcomm chips were in 99% cell phones in the world
  • Developing product goes through stages before commercialization Ask for voice of sales, voice of customers

Speaker: Kris Porter

  • Software Engineer: SRE, DevOps, Infrastructure engineer
  • UCLA in Electrical Engineering
  • Researched Embedded Networked Sensors, opened up software engineering (learned Linux)
  • Worked at startup with email marketing automation, working as DevOps
  • Then worked at NBC Universal, streaming media infrastructure
  • Qualcomm for six years, DevOps, automation, monitoring
  • Work at Twitter, work on GraphQL
  • Spent time in securing networks
  • Emphasize continous learning: CCNA, Machine learning and deep learning, Python, Data structure, Algorithm and System Design (for interview), Twitter University
  • Projects: Streaming media infrastructure, analytics infrastructure (LocationSmart at Qualcomm), add GraphQL component at data centers at Twitter Moving REST API to GraphQL

Q & A:

  • Agile methodology: Technical: Different companies have different versions of Agile For example: Qualcomm: Planned work in 2-3 days meeting, created a roadmap for any project Sprints: Plan what you can do in a shorter amount of time (ex: 1 month) Very important skillset for tech
  • Python, Machine Learning framework: TensorFlow
  • GitLab with 100k repositories, using machine learning algorithm to figure out downloads
  • Nontechnical: Data scientist: Join frontend database to predict customer demand and sales Example: Use database to predict demand during vaccine orders

  • Most important skill to have in tech industry? Continuous learning (learning how to learn), you will probably learn a new programming language at each company you work for Don’t worry about what you see on the news

    Be adaptable, life can be like a zigzag path

  • Biggest challenge in tech industry + how overcome? Silicon Valley tech interviews: Timed random tests: Solve a problem in 30-45 min, code should compile

  • Twitter University? Formal training of systems because things built are private Learn to navigate through the code

  • How will learning to code help in business? Coding teaches you how to problem solve and critical thinking, why did you reach the conclusion that you did?

  • Interested in learning/exploring? Web3, AWS, Google Cloud

  • How coding help in investment/finance? Algorithms and patterns can help with stock