*slurp*
Mmmm, still good.
Hey, everyone. What's happenin' ? It's mayuko. Thank you so much to the love on the last two videos.
Every time I saw a comment about how excited you all are about tech and software engineering
it made me soo happy.
So many of you asked me questions about how I got into tech and software engineering
so today, I'm going to dive in and tell you my story.
Here we go!
I never coded before college. My high school never offered computer science classes
and I never thought that I would be a software engineer, ever.
I went to college at UC San Diego where I started my freshman year as undeclared.
I actually was considering being like a chemistry or neuroscience major
But I took an intro course in each and I quickly noped out of there because I realized it wasn't for me.
I was hanging out with my dorm friends one day when one of them suggested I try computer science.
He was a CS major himself and he said that with my logically minded brain
and my desire to do something sciency, computer science would be perfect for me!
He also mentioned that there's more software engineering jobs than there are software engineers
and as someone who really wanted to have job security and be financially stable right after college
that sounded really awesome!
At this point in my freshman year
I was basically willing to try anything because of my two failed attempts at declaring my major previously.
To find out a little bit more about computer science, I went to the campus library to do some research
and by research, I mean check out any books that have the word computers or software in them
or anything that had code.
I flipped through them to see if I would enjoy absorbing the information that was presented in these books.
I wasn't exactly like, "Oh my gosh, linked lists are like the coolest thing, how did no one tell me about them?"
But I was having a much easier time absorbing the information than I did my chemistry and bio classes.
Literally the next day I signed up for my intro to computer science class.
And after getting through that class and being like "that wasn't too bad, I think I can do more"
I declared my major as computer science!
After taking a couple more classes and becoming friends with my classmates and tutors
it became clear to me that internships are pivotal in getting a job after college.
Now to preface, I worked part-time jobs all through college to support myself financially
and through my freshman year, I worked at Jamba Juice and the campus bookstore.
In my second year, I found a job at UCSD Department of Biomedical Informatics.
They were a department that uses data analytics to sequence genes to help save people.
Pretty cool stuff!
I started working there as an office assistant being paid close to minimum wage,
helping organize files and folders, and also helping with the conferences that the division put on.
I knew they had a summer internship program, so I was hoping this job would serve as a foot in the door to that program.
When the internship program started accepting applications,
I want to go talk to the program lead, and he gave me a spot in the program,
thanks to my foot-in-the-door technique.
My project there was to create a webpage that would help scientists visualize the data that they're getting.
I used a lot of JavaScript frameworks and PHP.
Looking back on it, I literally had a 2,000 line PHP file because I didn't really know what I was doing.
But that's okay because I learned a ton about software development!
After my three-month internship ended,
I gained some confidence in that I could actually build something that people would use,
and so now I wanted to use my skills to something that I was more personally interested in.
At the time, I was watching a lot of Doctor Who and Neil Degrasse Tyson and Carl Sagan,
and so my next endeavor was going to be space.
My friend actually had an internship on campus that was run by the Sally Ride foundation.
Sally Ride was the first American woman in space and her company was hiring!
I went to the typical interview process where I
talked through my resume and talked about different projects that I worked on
and I got the job!
I think it was actually one of my coolest jobs to date.
Not only was I finally being able to use my coding skills for something that I was interested in,
but we had this cool mission control room where we ran "missions" for this project called Grail MoonKAM.
There I made a Java-based game intended to teach middle school students how the Grail spacecraft worked
It was a lot of object-oriented programming and learning how to use Java's rendering library: Java 2D swing.
This job was also great because I could work during the school year part-time while I was continuing my studies.
Now summer was approaching quickly and at this point, I was in my third year of college.
I really wanted some experience working at a big tech company,
since I set my eyes on working at one right after I graduated.
I went to the tech job fair on campus and faced rejection after rejection,
from I'm handing out all my resumes.
After lots of applying and interviewing at tech companies
and also applying through my friends who worked at them, I got an internship at Intuit.
a financial software company that makes Turbotax.
During my 3 month internship there, I worked on Turbotax.com and used a lot of JavaScript and HTML
and I learned a lot about software development and its processes.
and after that was done, I went back to school for my fourth and final year of college.
I successfully graduated from UCSD in 2014 with my Bachelor's in Computer Science.
*yayy!!*
Now, to take a step back,
and I know I'm really fortunate to say this, but college is one of the hardest things that I've ever done.
I worked part-time to support myself financially,
and I was also a part of a lot of student organizations to network
and also have a community of friends who were also studying engineering.
Balancing all of that with a demanding computer science curriculum was really tough,
but I somehow made it through and it's still one of my proudest accomplishments to date!
I rejoined Intuit after I graduated,
and was part of a two-year rotational program that would give me the opportunity to rotate between
different teams and projects and products and work on different technologies.
especially because I didn't really know whether I wanted to work on web, or mobile,
or backend or infra [infrastructure] stuff quite yet.
It just so happened that my first rotation was on the Turbotax iOS team,
where I had my very first introduction to mobile programming, which I still do today.
I was fortunate enough to join an awesome team that showed me how fun work can be
and how rewarding it is to work on a project that has a positive impact on people's lives.
When my rotation ended, I decided I wanted to move up to Silicon Valley to be fully embedded in the tech world
and also experience what it's like to be a software engineer working in the Valley.
I thought maybe this was like Hollywood for actors or like Broadway for musical stars,
so I was really excited!
I felt so excited to be taking such a big step in my career, and dive head-first into the tech world.
I still worked at Intuit, but I worked from their Bay area office,
and I was still doing mobile development.
After my rotation ended and writing a lot of Swift code,
I decided that I wanted to write something other than financial software.
I just so happened to stumble upon a job opening at Patreon
a company that creates a membership platform that makes it easy for creators
to get paid via membership tools and recurring funding from their fans.
Since I've always loved the YouTube community and always loved to music growing up,
I saw this and I thought, "I have to have this job!"
And so I submitted my resume that same day.
I interviewed with the typical three-stage interview process:
the phone screen, the technical phone screen or take-home project, and the on-site.
And! I got the job!
*yay!*
This felt like getting my dream job and everything I had done led up to this point and this job.
*fast forward*
Fast-forward to now, I still work at Patreon as an iOS engineer helping to build Patreon's iOS apps.
I absolutely love what I do,
and it's awesome to be a part of a project that helps fund the emerging creative class.
So that's it!
That's been my career path so far. It's been highlighted with a lot of hard work, a lot of asking myself,
"What would make me happy to apply my skills to", and constant change.
And I'm really proud of how far I've come. Needless to say there are so many different
paths and ways of getting into software engineering that are so different from my own.
Several of my friends have had completely different journeys into software engineering
that are different from my own, and they're all achieving their goals and dreams.
Mine is just one data point that I hope will help you somehow.
There isn't one right way to get into software engineering!
So go with your gut and do what you're passionate about.
Thank you so much for watching again.
Thank you to every single one of you who has commented or reached out to me on my last two videos.
Like I said in my previous video, my intent is to hopefully help foster a interest or career in technology,
and so it really means so much to me that you all are enjoying this content.
If you have any questions for me at all, please don't hesitate to leave a comment down below or
reach out to me via Twitter or Instagram, and if you like this video
please give it a thumbs up and subscribe to my channel if you'd like to see more!
Anyways, I hope you all have a great day!
I wonder how level my head is... oh-
It's like a game!