Piero Castillo, a third year CS major at the University of Central Florida, and a member of the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE), has been volunteering through the student volunteers program at a local high school for the past year.
He developed a love for CS early into his college career and believes “CS is always relevant…technology is part of everything.” Sharing his knowledge and passion with younger students has created a lasting impact on Piero and the students he worked with. At the end of last school year, a high school student who was motivated by his experience with the igniteCS volunteers said that he “never realized how much CS could accomplish and wanted to keep learning.”
Piero Castillo, CS major at the University of Central Florida
Over at the University of Cincinnati, Mansi Patel, a leader on her school’s ACM Council on Women in Computing (ACM-W), began volunteering with Google’s CS student volunteer program when she realized there were issues engaging undergraduate women in the CS major.
She wanted to get students involved starting in high school, showing the girls that going to college and majoring in CS were real options for them. Mansi has seen “a huge difference in the students [she’s] taught” and continues to lead the way in bringing CS to the next generation.
Mansi Patel, igniteCS volunteer at the University of Cincinnati
We invite you to join this community of over 2,000 college volunteers to bring computer science to your community. Registered university students have access to lesson plans, materials, and support from Google to implement volunteer programming. Just gather a group of students at your college and register on the website. We’ll send you lesson plans and a free kit of materials to get started.
I'm from the suburbs of Philadelphia (specifically Doylestown, for anyone familiar). I attended James Madison University (JMU) in Harrisonburg, Virginia, and received degrees in Quantitative Finance and Mathematics. When I'm not working, I love to keep active, and I also enjoy a good brunch! I’ve recently gotten back into surfing, and I’m looking forward to the upcoming snowboarding season.
What’s your role at Google?
I am a Staffing Services Associate (SSA) on the College Staffing Services Team. I primarily engage with software engineers who are about to graduate from an undergraduate, masters, or PhD program. I also specialize in scheduling research scientist candidates and internal Googlers. I like working on the specialty candidates the most because they come from extremely diverse backgrounds and are usually being brought on to develop the next Google product.
Currently, I’m working on a project to grow our interviewer pool by gathering more complete information about our interviewers, so we can properly match their expertise with our candidates.
What inspires you to come in every day?
It’s very exciting to be with a company that’s motivated to make an impact on a global scale every single day. I feel very fortunate to be here and want to play my part in finding the next generation of Googlers.
Can you tell us about your decision to enter the process?
I was interested in working for Google ever since I was a sophomore in high school. I kept hearing that Google was the paradise version of work, where you could change the world for the better and have fun doing it. I applied for every program that I thought I was qualified for, and was very determined to work here one day. I was ultimately given an interview during my senior year of college, and although I had a different background than most people entering the staffing industry, I was optimistic about my chances.
How did the recruitment process go for you?
I first applied to be a Data Scientist through an alumni of JMU and was redirected to interview for the Staffing Services Associate position. I instantly took them up on the offer to interview. After passing through the phone interview stage, I remember flying out the next day to interview onsite, then flying back just in time to take my fall semester finals.
Can you tell us about the resources you used to prepare for your interview or role?
I used the provided resources from the recruiter, as well as anything I could find on the internet, specifically YouTube. I reviewed the "How We Hire" page and the job posting about 20 times before the interview.
Do you have any tips you’d like to share with aspiring Googlers?
Talk to anyone you know who has been through the process. Use resources such as YouTube, and brainstorm possible questions based on the job posting.
See yourself at Google as a Staffing Services Associate? Apply now!
Hash Code is back for its 5th year of challenging students and professionals in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa to solve a Google engineering problem. Registration to compete opens in early January, but hub registration is open now at g.co/hashcode. Bring developers at your university together to compete — register your Hash Code 2018 hub today!
More than 26,000 participants teamed up to optimize how videos are served online for the Hash Code 2017 Online Qualification Round. Excitement and tensions were high across the region, especially at the 467 Hash Code hubs organized by university clubs, developer meetup groups, and participants.
Hubs bring teams in the same local area together for the Online Qualification Round. While teams can compete from wherever they’d like, participating from a Hash Code hub adds a bit of extra fun to the competition — as evidenced by last year’s hub photos!
To give you more insight into Hash Code, we caught up with Dominika and Adam, who organized a hub in Kraków, Poland last year, to find out more about their experience:
Why did you choose to organize a hub?
We chose to organize a hub because we felt that providing an opportunity for people to come together and work on a challenging problem is the best way to let them develop their skills and themselves.
What was the process of setting up your hub?
There was the normal event stuff, like booking a room, getting approvals from our university, and ensuring Wifi was set up. We also started promoting the event a few weeks earlier to be sure we had as many participants as possible. The real fun started just before the competition when we decorated the room with balloons and posters — luckily a few participants came early so they decided to join us and help!
What's your favorite part about hosting a hub?
Meeting new people! That’s definitely the best part. You can feel the passion and excitement in the room.
The Online Qualification Round for Hash Code 2018 will take place on March 1, 2018. If you think you’d like to organize a hub at your university, you can sign up today. If you can’t host a hub but would like to compete in Hash Code 2018, fill in this form and we’ll email you as soon as registration opens early next year.
Today’s post is all about Melissa Holguin. Read on!
Can you tell us a bit about yourself?
I grew up in Doral, Florida, which is a suburb of Miami. I went to college at the University of Central Florida and studied a full circle of engineering majors. I started in Computer Science (CS), then switched to Electrical Engineering, switched again to Computer Engineering, and finally ended up returning to CS my junior year of college, adding on a Music minor to go along with my CS degree. Outside of work, I like archery, bowling, video games, and binging on TV shows. Every once in a while, I get inspired and do some music producing.
What’s your role at Google?
I'm a Software Engineer on the YouTube Music Analytics team. I love that I get to be on a team that mixes music and technology. I just recently started on this team, but it looks like I'll be working on improving charts for music artists and tracks.
What inspires you to come in every day?
Even after a year of working at Google, it still feels surreal sometimes that I get to work with the most brilliant minds — it inspires me to work hard every day and makes me feel that my creativity will be put to good use.
Can you tell us about your decision to enter the process?
I had always thought of Google as the top dog of technology companies. It was definitely on my list of dream jobs, but I always thought it would be a long time before I'd be qualified to work there. I was thrilled to find out that someone thought I was ready just as I was finishing up my degree in CS.
How did the recruitment process go for you?
I was contacted by a recruiter that found my profile on Linkedin. I was extremely surprised, since I still had two semesters to finish before graduation, and I wasn't planning on applying anywhere until I was in my final semester. The recruiter first reached out in September and I didn't get my final decision until January, so I was definitely anxious in the time between because it was such a huge deal for me.
What do you wish you’d known when you started the process?
I wish I would've known about the Engineering Residency program beforehand. It ended up being the perfect fit for me!
Can you tell us more about the resources you used to prep?
I mainly used this website called InterviewBit, which was really good for practicing coding questions from all different categories. I spent around five hours a day solving problems for a week leading up to my first technical interview.
To finish, do you have any tips you’d like to share with aspiring Googlers?
Keep an open mind and don't pass on an opportunity based on specifics alone. In large companies like Google, there is so much room for growth and change. You never know what kind of opportunities will open up in the future, so your knowledge and experience will be a useful thing to have.
Want to learn more about the Engineering Residency? Watch our video, or head over to g.co/EngResidency. Ready to apply to the residency? We're currently accepting applications at https://goo.gl/rhBmj1.
