so ever since I started this channel
I've gotten a lot of questions about
working at Google like what's he like to
work there 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it would be a little bit outdated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 till about
two years ago so instead I decided to
interview a friend of mine
Jane Lew who is currently a software
engineer at Google 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 and her
experience of being a female software
engineer in this male-dominated industry
so here's the interview and I hope you
enjoy all right so thanks so much for
coming here thank you for having me yeah
I appreciate it
let's just get started with you know a
basic question yeah so just could you
introduce yourself for us yeah hi
everyone I'm Jane and I'm a software
engineer at Google in the Waterloo
Kitchener office I've been at Google for
a year now and I'm on the cloud
healthcare team great so let's get
started with your education okay so I
understand that you were in the
engineering science program at the
University of Toronto okay no computer
science yeah but eventually you got into
coding you got your first coding
internship yeah so how was what was that
process like yeah so um so I guess I'll
talk a little bit about what engineering
science is about so this program is kind
of like they want to give you two years
of foundational studies and 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 and rural 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 and
Computer Engineering and I wanted to see
if I couldn't get an internship just to
see how it's actually like working as a
software engineer and see if 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 openings in
California it just so happened that
somewhat older in my program told me
about engineering practicum program at
Google it's basically a software
internship geared towards 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 know 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 like how did you study
for me it was a combination of cracking
the coding interview and also just
talking to a pupper years a 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 and interviews especially I
introduced with like first and second
year students and that's mostly how I
got my practice cool and so eventually
you went from just interning there to
working there full-time
mm-hm what was your transition like
there um that's actually a pretty easy
process usually I would say not just for
Google for a lot of big companies once
you've interned there especially if
you've entered there multiple times as
long as you've done well in your
projects they are 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 an offer for
full-time position when I was in fourth
year I did some comparisons between
other companies but in the end I decided
Google
my fit so that's how I signed a full
time offer at Google nice and what do
you work on as a software developer at
Google so I'm currently on the cloud
healthcare team it's a pretty new tune
so probably not a lot of you have heard
of it basically we are building
healthcare solutions on Google cloud
platform
usually we say googles mission is to
organize the world's information and
make it universally accessible and use
useful for us but in particular it's
more that we are organizing the world's
healthcare information and make it
accessible useful and most importantly
secure 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 API so that's
for medical health records DICOM api so
that's for medical imaging records and
we also have like machine learning
solutions for healthcare data and just a
lot of stuff around that right so the
idea is using Google cloud to 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 and could
you tell us about what your
day-in-the-life is like working there
yeah
I'm just a software engineer right now
so my day in the left face pretty simple
I would say so we have a free meals at
Google 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 at Google and then Wow I
jerk my coffee I usually check my emails
from last night because sometimes it's
like you run things the day before you
want to just check some updates coming
from yesterday and then after that in
the morning my team also has a daily
stand up so during the standby usually
everybody gives updates about what
they've been working on 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
project updates in general we also have
a lot of like activities iGoogle so
those are usually towards the end of the
afternoon so we have a lot of Tech Talks
hosted at Google Waterloo and we also
have a weekly TGIF thank god it's almost
Friday hosted towards the end of the
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 at Google that's
that's my day iGoogle cool yeah so it
sounds like you have like a lot of
events happening but when do you
actually get stuff done you know I think
like as I said I usually a lot of the
time in the afternoon is for you to get
your work done and I would say like
everyone at Google 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 at work is a little bit
slower then I would look up like is
there any workshops that I want to do or
is there anything I want to learn and
that's when I would participate a little
more on those things nice so you're
being working there for one year two
years now one year one year yeah so like
after working there for one year do you
have like any long-term goals there that
you want to achieve like either at
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
software developer I'd obviously want to
spend more time learning different
technologies and getting to know our
codebase better and then later on I hope
that in a few years I will be able to I
guess take projects of bigger scope and
design things at a bigger scale so I
guess that will be my short term goal
nice and what's your favorite part of
working at Google I would say my
favorite part is 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 Google for full time I just
think in general everyone on 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 Network or
anything like that there's like so many
channels where you can like voice your
concerns and get your help 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 altaira
when I was there and then it was
acquired by Intel while I was there for
the internship so those two are actually
kind of hard to compare because altaira
was a pretty hardware focused company
it's an FPGA company whereas Google is
like pretty software centric so that's
one of the differences um I feel like at
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 and Intel sorry
I'll Terra when I was working there it
was more like because a lot of things
are centered around their fpga rollout
and stuff like that things move a little
slower and then all the software's have
to kind of move around or hardware
progress another small thing that I also
noticed is that I feel like people in
the software industry and also
particularly at Google move around a lot
so then you see a lot of I guess young
faces and then a lot of people have them
being a Google for that long whereas at
Altera and I would say probably a lot of
other hardware companies 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 know they know like
the software system inside out and stuff
like that so that's another difference
and I'm just kind of curious is there
anything you don't like about working at
Google 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 and projects and
everything I mean that's why I'm still
there I guess all right the next
question is do you have any advice on
getting a software developer job at
companies like Google yeah
so I would say my advice were probably
more get be more geared towards people I
guess seen universities still because I
have anything 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 want to
start looking at doing projects and kind
of just demonstrate your skills and also
learn more things while you're in
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 well in your course
projects I think all of them will help
you manage all that Google after you
graduate okay and one thing that is sort
of like hear about a lot you know about
people working at companies like Google
prestigious companies is they sometimes
have a pollster syndrome
have you had anything like that
yeah of course I was there probably
there's not that many people who haven't
experienced it for me I guess in
particular one thing that I always feel
is that I feel like I haven't done
enough or I just haven't produced enough
results and stuff like that and I got
like super anxious 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 technical perspective so for
example I can ask other people what they
think of my work I can ask my managers
or peers for feedback and I can also
just look at the progress of my project
and compare to say our team team
objectives or quarterly objectives and
and then if you do it that way then you
will have a more objective view of how
you're doing turns your at work and then
for me that's when I realized oh like
I'm doing fine like I'm meeting all the
objectives I'm meeting the dollar
deadline so I'm doing fine so right now
I'm feeling like less anxious now I'm
pretty happy about the progress that I'm
making so yeah all right and is there
anything you can tell us about your
experience of being a female software
engineer in this male-dominated industry
yeah so um I have to say my experience
has been mostly positive I think I've
been really fortunate to 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 at
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 practicum internship at
Google some of my classmates told me I
only got it because I was a girl at that
time I didn't really think too much of
them but the later I felt a little
I heard about it but then again I
started to look look at my I guess
progress and skills from more technical
perspective I know that I've been doing
well at Google
even when I was an intern so that was
when I kind of shook it off and and know
that I really deserves this okay so do
you have any advice for other female
software developers or maybe other
minority groups yeah um so something
that really helped me along the way is
mentorship I think it really helps a lot
when you know that there's someone there
who might have more experience than you
in the software industry to give you
advice or just tell you that they've
been through the same thing when you
when you're going through something
difficult so I would say if you feel
like you're I guess a more junior member
in the industry and you need any sort of
advice you should never hesitate to
reach out who are the people you look up
to or you think might know more than you
and ask them what they think and ask
them for advice just ask them if they
can get coffee or something like that
and I would say if you feel like you are
a little more senior in the industry or
in your class and you might know
something that might help other people I
would encourage you to kind of take the
time and see if anyone else might need
help or just need someone to talk to I
think if everyone could do that then we
would really be able to foster kind of
like a really positive a feeling of
community withing the minorities within
the software industry all right so this
is my last question for you do you have
any general advice for people who want
to get into this field of software
engineering um I would say my advice is
pretty similar to what I said about how
you can land a job at Google after you
graduate it will be that if you're
interested in the software industry then
you should definitely take the time to
improve your skills maybe through going
through cracking the coding interview or
just learning about data structures and
algorithms in general and then if you
want to get some practice you should
definitely take every chance you can get
to do some side projects and
to open-source projects and if you get
internships definitely do those
internships and yeah that will be
married by think alike alright that's it
for this interview and if you're looking
for a software engineer job right now
you should check out the sponsor of this
video
triple bite Superboy is I would say one
of the most prominent and useful
websites for getting a software engineer
job in either San Francisco New York
Seattle or Los Angeles the way it works
is you take their skill assessment quiz
once and once you pass it you'll be able
to start having you know on-site
interviews with a bunch of companies so
basically it's a way to skip the phone
screening phase altogether and the
reason I decided to have them as a
sponsor of this video is because first
of all I already knew about them before
they contacted me for this and secondly
because it's actually something I would
personally use if I was looking for a
software engineer job right now and if
you want to check them out please use my
referral link CS dojo that IO slash
triple just to let them know that you
guys came from here and by the way it's
completely free for you guys for the
candidates because it's only paid for by
the companies that hire the candidates
anyway thank you as always for watching
my videos and I'll see you guys in the
next one