What kinds of activities were you involved in while you were at Stanford? Did you join clubs or student organizations? What did you study? What were your favorite classes?
I was the president of the Black Pre-Law society for a year. I attended the Stanford in Paris program for a quarter. I participated in many of the Black Student Services Center programs and worked as their computer coordinator for a year. I got involved in various dorm activities over the years. Lived in Cardenal,Flo Mo (frosh year), Anderson, Suites(Sophomore yr), Durand, Row(Junior Yr), Grenada, Lag(Senior yr), and Rains (Grad year). I double majored in CS and Psychology. Some of my favorite classes were CS224 Robot Programming, CS107 Programming paradigms, Theory of Mind Control with Phil Zimbardo as an undergrad and TA'ing that same class as a grad student, and Applications in Social Psychology as a grad student to name a few.
When you first started at Stanford, did you have any thoughts about your career plans? If so, what were those thoughts?
Yes, I was planning on double majoring in Computer Science and Psychology. Then going to law school
Did those initial ideas change or evolve while you were at Stanford?
The idea never really changed all through school. I worked in the Software Engineering field before and after graduation and found that I liked it a lot more than most of my friends that went to law school enjoyed their jobs, so I eventually decided not to go to law school and stay in the software field.
What did you do with your summers? Did you work? Did you have any interesting experiences? How did you find those experiences?
I worked doing something different every summer:
Summer after Frosh yr: I worked at Stanford Sierra Camp. That was a blast! I have a lot of fun and interesting memories from that experience.
After Sophomore yr: I worked at a real estate investment company in Palo Alto called Marcus & Millichap, with which I was already working part time during that school year. I got the job originally through a referral from someone I talked to in the Stanford Alumni Association's career network. That was a good experience as well.
After Junior yr: I participated in the Summer Undergraduate Research Program at Berkeley (SUPERB). I worked on the PATH project. They were developing an automated highway system simulation where cars would be controlled by computers. It was a very interesting project.
After Senior Yr: I did an internship at Hewlett-Packard in Santa Clara after graduation. I got the position after talking to my would be manager when I decided to stop in the last 15 minutes of a Stanford career fair being held in Tresidder. I had already acquired an internship position after graduation with a small software company in San Francisco, but I decided why not. I decided to take the HP position instead since it was a much bigger and well-known company. I worked in the HP Network Server Division. It was a very good experience. At the end of the summer, my manager offered me a full-time position, but I was already in Stanford's co-terminal Psychology Masters program (which incidentally was why I was looking for only an internship position after graduation rather than a full-time position like most people).
So I declined. I had done a really good job so he kept asking me to change my mind about the co-term program and work for them instead, since I already had my BS in Computer Science. But I didn't.
What was your first job after graduation and what did you have to do to find it?
In the Spring of my co-term masters year, I called up my old manager at HP where I had an internship the summer before and simply told him I was available, and he said, "I'll take care of it". No interviews, no
applications, within 48 hrs I had an official offer from Hewlett-Packard. It was sweet. It occurred to me much later that this was actually a better way to find a job after graduation. I would advice prospective graduates in any field to look for internships at companies where they're interested in working even over taking a full-time position if they're not sure about it for three reasons:
a) It is easier to acquire an internship. Since the company is making only a short term commitment, they would not likely put much effort in the interview process compared to that for full-time positions. I got my
internship after a 5 minute career fair conversation with no additional
interview. Companies who hire interns are looking for cheap talent and
invariably looking at them as potential full-time employees down the line. Hiring an intern who has just graduated or is about to graduate is a big win for the company. They have someone who can be immediately converted to a full-time employee at any time and they have 3 months or so to evaluate your performance before making any long-term hiring decisions. And as icing on the cake, they get to pay you significantly less the entire time than they would if you were a full-time employee.
b) It sucks to land your first real job and then end up hating it once
you've worked it for a little while. So while the company is evaluating you, you could be evaluating them and be getting more experience to make you look more attractive to another company if you end up not liking the first one.
c) Do a really good job and you will most likely get a full-time offer.
And most people don't think about this but your starting salary would be
higher than it would be if you had been hired directly to begin with in most cases, because you would be a "known quantity" to the company and pose a minimal hiring risk. Most hiring decisions are risky for companies, because a good resume and interview do not guarantee good performance down the line by any stretch. That's why they always prefer referrals from people they trust or going with people they've worked with before.
What did you do at your first job? Was it what you expected?
I worked on the core firmware team at HP's Network Server Division. Since I had worked with this same group as an intern, I just jumped right in, doing low-level firmware design and development for their high-end server management embedded systems, in C and x86 assembly. It was nice because I knew in advance exactly what to expect. It didn't even feel like my first full-time job, because I already knew the people and had their respect on day one and knew exactly what to do and what was expected of me. I was simply given a significant project to work on with little concern on either side of my ability to compete it. It was a comforting, easy transition experience that couldn't be beat.
How did your career evolve after that? How did your experiences lead to other opportunities?
My career evolved beautifully. By routinely exceeding expectations, I was able to seize and often create opportunities for myself. Like how the butterfly flapping its wings can ultimately have a significant effect on the
environment, it seemed like my little successes kept opening up new and bigger opportunites for me that I hadn't even considered when I originally achieved them. After only 3 years in the field, I was somehow able to increase my salary 150% over my starting salary after graduation by getting big raises and changing jobs. I did this by taking FULL responsibility for my career path and not entrusting some other person or company to do it for me. And I've never been laid off despite the prevalence of this based on economic downturns. My career path as a Software Engineer progressed as follows:
- FT Employee, Hewlett-Packard, Network Server Division,
Cupertino, CA for 2.5 yrs.
- Contractor, Lockheed Martin Mission Systems, San Jose, CA
for 6 mos.
- Independent Contractor, C3I Operations, Inc., Phoenix, AZ
for 1.5 yrs. (developing Satellite Command & Control software)
- Contractor, Lockheed Martin Commercial Space Systems,
Sunnyvale, CA for 3 mos.
- FT Employee, General Dynamics Decision Systems, Scottsdale, AZ
for 2 yrs.
- Contractor (under my own S-Corporation), Boeing Integrated Defense
Systems, Mesa, AZ for 1 mo. (Current Position)
What skills/experiences from college were most important in your career development?
Probably more than anything else, having the opportunity to hone my critical thinking and creative problem solving skills in an intense academic environment like Stanford's where the standards are very high really helped set me apart when I entered the "real world". I was used to being in an environment where everyone strived for excellence and many achieved it. So out in the real world where there is more diversity in terms of individual ability and motivations, I found it very easy to excel, because I had already been put through the rigors at Stanford. As a matter of fact, I still maintain that after 8 years working in the software development industry, I still have yet to experience anything as overtly challenging as my time at Stanford. For me this is good, because I can enjoy what I do and do my best without ever worrying about whether it's good enough, because the bar I set for myself is always higher that the one others set for me. So even when I fall short, I'm still ahead of the pack. Continue to strive to be the best, and even if you're not, you can still be among the priveleged few at the top.
Any advice for students?
See earlier comment about interships. Also, ALWAYS do your best and try to routinely exceed expectations. Take initiative. Volunteer to do important tasks you've never done before in order to learn and grow. By doing little else, you will be noticed by higher managers and doors of opportunity will open. Watch for them. Also, KEEP AND GROW YOUR CONTACTS!!! Your long-term career success arguably can ultimately be measured by the quality of your contacts. If Daddy's contacts can't help land you the White House, you probably should begin building your own. Being exceptionally good at your work doesn't help much if no one knows it in terms of opening doors of opportunity. It is difficult to walk into an interview and simply say, "I'm really, really good. Trust me!" and have that help much. You need to build a base of people in your field that know the quality of your work and is willing to hire, refer, or work with you based on a simple phone call or email. If you're good at what you do, and you have good contacts, the sky is the limit!
Can you provide a brief description of the work you do and examples of typical task/projects.
I have over the last few years began specializing and focusing my career on embedded and real-time software development in the aerospace and defense industries. Without getting too specific, I help develop some of the embedded software used by particular defense programs.
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