Michael Wojcicki - Software Engineer
I set out to solve difficult problems with the willingness to learn and dedication to persevere. I specialize in solution architecture, and big data optimization. More importantly, I will only work on projects that I firmly believe will help better someone else's life. I only take on problems that are very challenging, but very rewarding to solve. Any project that I work on is something that I am fully dedicated to, and passionate about.
Software Engineer at Google - Platforms and Ecosystems in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Before my career began at Google, I did a mix of server jobs, and computer repair roles. Why are there no software related roles you might ask? Two main reasons, horrible timing, and lack of life experience.
You see, I've always wanted to do computer science ever since I was young, and I can say confidently that it's the thing that I am most passionate about. However, my skillset is pretty different from most people. First, I have excellent spatial reasoning, and memory. This helps me design and architecture systems fairly easily. Second, I am good at solving very tough problems due to the aforementioned skills, but I am not the quickest. This, of course, poses a pretty big challenge for me because the world works on a clock and time is money.
The other major roadblock was my two part education in conjuction with the COVID-19 pandemic. I went to community college to complete my general education credits, and then I finished my formal degree at Illinois Tech. During my transition from community college to my transfer school, I was primarily focused on getting into a good university. At this point, I didn't know that I would be attending Illinois Tech, and I had my eye on a number of other universities as well. In combination with this major decision, and lack of proper algorithmic foundation, I spent almost no time searching for interviews because I believed that I had plenty of time. After all, I can just get an internship in my 3rd to 4th year right?
Well, I was right. Almost. I managed to not only get interviews for Summer 2020 intern roles, but I also managed to land an on-site interview with a company. All of these interviews were around Mid-February, Late-March 2020. So of course it was to no surprise that when I heard back from these companies, they told me that because of "Uncertainity" due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, their Summer 2020 SWE Internships were cancelled. Just my luck.
The road has been tough, but I believe you're not a product of your circumstances, rather a product of your decisions. Those years were not spent twiddling my thumbs. The summer of Sophomore to Junior year (2019), I began seriously working on the early stages of MageForge, and near the end of Summer 2020 I began working on a reservation platform that students could use to book room to study for exams: FireSpace. I was eventually invited to turn this project into a Startup. Regardless of where it may lead, I decided to take the opportunity. I ended up learning a massive amount in professional software development, as well as how to create highly scalable and robust applications from the ground up under a mentor from Microsoft. In addition, I also taught myself the entire business side of things with the help of online resources, and guidance from other mentors at SpotHero and Adaptibar.