Open in app

Sign in

Write

Sign in

From Medical School Rejection Twice to Google and Pinterest Software Engineer: Ruth Grace Wong — Atila TV Episode 2

Tomiwa
Atila Tech
Published in
17 min readFeb 8, 2019

Ruth Grace Wong joins us on this episode of Atila TV to talk about her path from getting rejected from medical school twice, to doing a Master’s in computational biochemistry and working as a software engineer at top technology companies such as Google and Pinterest.

She also talks about advice for people who want to either become doctors or work in the tech industry, her work as a Manufacturing engineer/maker, what volunteering at a hospice taught her about compassion and gratitude, working at a larger versus smaller company, advice for females in tech and much more.

Note: This transcript has been summarized for brevity, if you would like to help transcribe the full interview, edit videos or help Atila TV in any way, please send an email to tomiwa@atila.ca.

Watch on Youtube

Podcast:

Listen on Spotify

Listen on iTunes

Timestamps

  • What were you like in high school? [1:50]
  • Why she switched from wanting to studying to CS to wanting to be a doctor in high school? [2:45]
  • Advice for people who want to go to medical school? [5:50]
  • Learning compassion, empathy and gratitude from volunteering at a Hospice [7:30]
  • How did you feel after getting rejected from medical school and what did you plan to do next? [8:30]
  • How did you get the Google internship? [8:30]
  • How did you get the Pinterest Job? [11:55]
  • Software engineer by day, manufacturing engineer and maker by night [14:40]
  • Lessons learnt from successful and failed projects? [16:50]
  • Working for startup versus big companies versus starting your own company? [18:45]
  • Advice for females in tech on taking more opportunities? [22:45]
  • How to network and prepare for interviews for a top tech company? [25:45]
  • How Ruth plans on raising kids while furthering her career? [28:25]
  • What is Ruth currently obsessed with? [30:00]
  • General life advice [32:40]

Links

Tomiwa: Ruth at 16. What were you like in high school? [1:50]

Ruth: [laughs]I was such a weird kid.

Tomiwa: The implication is that you’re not weird now [laughs].

RUth: I’m still wierd but I’m more comfortable with it, I think.

Tomiwa: Good Answer

Ruth: I liked to read. In tenth grade I took a civics class where I picked a career and budget my life based on that career and I picked CS but for some reasons I switched to wanting to be a doctor. After I realized I was not going to get into medical school, I went back to wanting to be a computer scientist.

Tomiwa: You said for some reason. What was that “for some reason” that you switched from computer science to wanting to be a doctor.

RUth: I don’t know. I liked computer science, i was taking classes in high school . I went to Earl Haig. My ninth grade tech teacher knew that I liked it and was decent at it. He told my tenth grade teacher and I skipped a grade after taking a test and I was feeling really good about how well I was doing.

I think gettin closer to University- My dad’s a doctor and he’s very happy. I think most of the doctors I know are really happy and really fulfilled and really successful. He wanted me to be a doctor and everyone wants to help people.

Tomiwa: Another thing that is very common is that people who are studying pre med but can’t get into medical school, they have to go and get a master’s degree so they can get a job…

Ruth: Yeah, that’s what I did.

Getting Into Medical School

Tomiwa: We’ll get to that. Do you have any advice for people who are aspiring doctors?

Ruth: If you want to go into medical school, it’s important to focus on your resume and extracurriculars. I encourage people to go into programs that they actually like and they have a passion for. That way even if they don’t get into medical school they won’t feel like it was for nothing and you’ll still have skills and relationships that you’ll be happy with no matter what.

For example, I did some extracurriculars that were really meaningful. I volunteered close to St. Joseph’s near Western. That was really good life perspective.

Tomiwa: In what sense?

Ruth: The people who work there are so compassionate and so empathetic. It’s definitely to strive for and something you wouldn’t’ see elsewhere. And having the experience of taking care of other people, it takes you out of your own problems. You’re like “Okay, whatever stuff I am sad about or upset about is not that big of a deal in the long run”. It gives you a nice centering and perspective.

From Medical School Rejection to Google and Pinterest

Tomiwa: So at that point when you didn’t get into medical school, I’m guessing you’re feeling a bit dejected? How are you feeling at that point and how are you thinking about “okay, What am i going to do next?”

Ruth: After I finished my undergrad degree, I did Google Summer of code. At the beginning of my university I worked at a mouse lab doing wet lab work. For my thesis [project I worked at a bioinformatics lab getting into more computational work. Also, my degree was specifically an honours specialization in computational biochemistry so I was like okay if I don’t get into medical school at least it has the word computer in the name so maybe I can do that. So I applied to google summer of code. There was a lab there, I believe bader lba from U of T that had an open source project called medsavant and some f the doctors at sick Kids used it because the kids have genetic disorders. So they can use the software to find what kind of single point mutations the kids might have and what protein/metabolic pathways that can affect,

So I signed up for that lab so because it was something I had some experience in, even though it was my first paid programming gig, I was able to get into there. Then the summer afterwards I was referred for actual google. So I interned there in the middle of my master’s degree and then after graduating my master’s degree I ended up at Pinterest.

Tomiwa: Why did you decide to do a master’s degree?

Ruth: At the end of my fourth year, I knew that I hadn’t gotten into medical school for the second time. So I knew I had to do something where if I didn’t get into medical school it would still work out.

So during my master’s degree I built up computer science skills. The master’s degree was programming because it was bioinformatics. Only a bit of wet lab work doing PCRs and DNA but most of it was programming. So during the master’s I was able to intern at Google and do Google Summer of Code.

Tomiwa: So you intern at Google a couple of times and you get a sign back offer to go back full time?

Ruth: After my internship, I did the exit interviews and I totally bombed one of them. So I didn’t get a regular full time offer. I got an engineering residency full time offer.Where you do some projects and coursework then like 97% of people who finish the program get a full time offer. Its meant for people who don’t have such a strong CS program.

So I got that offer, but because I got a regular full time offer from Pinterest., I didn’t need the Google residency offer.

Tomiwa: How did the Pinterest opportunity come about and how did you prepare for that interview?

Ruth: I was following the algorithm I guess, were you apply for as many companies as you can in september; where you apply for as many companies as you can and you see what shakes out.

I went to Major league Hacking Hack the Planet Hackathon in 2015 I think, in the computer history museum which was really cool. At the hackathon, three was the Andreessen Horowitz talent agency looking for student to put in their talent pool that they would refer to the startups they would invest in. So one of the MLH staff referred me for that and they got me in touch with Pinterest. I also went to Grace Hopper, which was funded by Google, after my internship, they paid for me to go to Grace Hopper and I was able to get some more interviews that way.

I did onsite and Facebook, Uber, Dropbox and Pinterest.

Tomiwa: Did you get offers to any of those companies or was it only Pinterest?

Ruth: I got an offer for Uber but didn’t end up taking it.

Tomiwa: Why did you pick Pinterest over Uber

Ruth: [thinks]

Tomiwa: if it’s money you can say money.

Ruth: [laughs] Definitely money, definitely money. Uber didn’t negotiate. But I also had a better interviewing experience at Pinterest over Uber and Pinterest had more mentoring opportunities.

Software Engineer by Day, Maker and Manufacturing Engineer by Night

Tomiwa: So that’s your “work” life. I know on your Linkedin it says Site Reliability engineer by day, maker by night. Tell us more about the maker part of your life.

Ruth: Oh, I should update it to say manufacturing engineer. I haven’t told my manager this yet, if he googles me he will find out. I have a part time job as a manufacturing engineer. I am working for my friend’s company. Their flagship product is ecoqube. They make hydroponic and aquaponic desktop kits. So little gardens that water themselves. This has been a process for me.

So I came to San Francisco in summer of 2016 after finishing my master’s. I went to a conference called Effective Altruism Global. They had this event there called Hamming Circles, where you figure out the biggest problem in your life and the other people in the group of 4 or 5 spend 10–15 minutes helping you just figure out.

Reflecting on it. I was like the reason I really like this position at Pinterest is because its software at scale. I feel like if I’m going to make an outsize impact there’s only a few fields that allow for that. So software at scale is one of those. For example, what we’re doing at Pinterest where there’s thousands of servers but there’s only one or dozen site reliability engineers so you basically have to automate and build systems to manage everything. That’s software at scale.

Other fields you can make an impact are shipping logistics. So how stuff moves around the world. So inequality around the world is not a matter of not having enough, but tis about distribution.

Another one is manufacturing. So how do you get hardware objects made at scale. So knowing I Really liked making things with my hand in my spare time, I really wanted to get into that. So that’s what I’ve been doing. SRE by day Manufacturing engineer by night.

Tomiwa: Off camera. Off air I guess you could say. I was asking you about things you’ve done in the past like the Leave me Alone sweater, the Growbox. You said that you stopped it because they all failed and you then you had to start making money. So tell us about projects you’ve made in the past and what you’ve learned from both your successes and your failures.

Ruth: Let’s see. I decided that I wanted to do that in summer of 2016. The first project I wanted to try my hand at manufacturing was the grow bucket. This was based off space buckets, which is a very popular subreddit. Where there is a community of people who grow mostly marijuana, but you can grow anything. Some people grow cherry tomatoes, hot peppers, that kind of thing, inside 5 gallon buckets. You install lights, fan, maybe a carbon filter and then you grow inside.

So I wanted to make a kit that was affordable, kind of a DIY kit. I was using buckets that I got from local bakeries, so they were food save, i just had to clear them out. I bought enough for a 100 kits or maybe 50 kits and then because I was buying the lightbulb and extension cord etc. in bulk I was able to get my cost down to $30 and I wanted to sell the kit for $50 and I went to maker faire. I think the problem is that people don’t want to do things that are DIY, like buckets that have been used by bakeries before. They want a more finished project. So I sold 1 or two and that was it. I had to recycle the other buckets.

Tomiwa: If someone is in a transition period in grade 12, graduating university, thinking about switching jobs and trying to decide what to do next. Do you have any advice for them?

Ruth: I think it’s not that important to have a comprehensive life strategy. Its okay to figure it out as you go along and the important thing is not to worry too much about if you’re doing the right thing. The important thing is to try a lot of things and something will stick. Like “Okay this is what I like, this is what I’m good at”

Tomwa: Looking at your story for example…

Ruth:

Like, I’m not qualified for any of the jobs I take. The team that I interned on at Google was SRE on the persistent disk team. I came in the first day, my mentor was like do you know what a file system is. I said I think I do, but I don’t think I understand it the way you do. I hadn’t taken a computer architecture course at all. That was such a struggle, like it was in C++ even at the end of my internship I was googling “What’s the difference between an asterisk and ampersand ?”

Advice for Females in Tech Industry

Tomiwa: I’m actually glad you brought that up. There’s a statistic out there, I’m going to make up the numbers but you’ll get the general idea. Where 87% of guys will apply for a job they’re not qualified for. But a lot of time women may not apply for a job unless they meet all the qualifications

Ruth: The way I heard it is that the average guy will apply for a job that their 75% qualified for but the average woman will only apply to 100% qualified.

Tomiwa: Do you want to speak to that. Especially working in the tech space. For women or any females watching this. The importance of just taking the risk and putting yourself out there.

Ruth: Yeah! Just apply, don’t be afraid. You can even be smart about it, you don’t have to throw your resume into the void. You can find somebody who knows somebody who works at the company you’re interested in and be like I really like your company and I want to talk to you about it. You can get some information on what candidat their looking for and if you can apply now or spend some time furthering a skill before applying to your dream job. I really encourage you to just try.

Tomiwa: If someone’s trying to decide between a big company like a google or a Facebook. Where the company itself may have more impact but I have a smaller role. Or should I go work for a smaller company. The tradeoffs between a larger vs smaller company.

Ruth: My husband and I actually have opposite opinions on this. For me, working for a larger company was great because they have a lot of infrastructure around mentorship and you can work with a lot of senior people. I don’t have a CS degree I feel really out of place here, for my master’s I was doing scripting in R which is not software engineering.

I do feel like based on the other senior people on my team, as I progress in my career it would be good for me to work at smaller, less operational mature companies to get my chops. But then the way my husband ended up doing it; he had a React textbook and he read it and made a project in React on the side. Then he got hired by Locust 21 , startup in Waterloo, then he got hired by Top Hat then he got his job at Cruise, he’s trying to come out to join me because I was in SF for a year. He went the opposite, where he’s going from a slightly small company, to bigger to bigger.

The way he did that was he made himself good at a technology that was hot. React is a software development framework that’s hot right now. So you can go either way.

What to Study and How to Network for a Tech Career

Tomiwa: The thing you mentioned about studying what’s hot right now. People ask, what’s the hot thing right now that I should study. I’m sort of thinking just pick what you’re most interested in. Most software engineering roles, if you’re a python expert and your company uses Ruby on Rails they’ll still hire you if you are good at learning things fast. But people will ask this question so I want to give them an answer. If people are thinking what should I study, what’s the hot new thing that makes the money. What advice would you give?

Ruth: Talk to people working in your industry. Figure out what your dream job is. Figure out what you need to get there.

TOmiwa: For example, for SRE I know Devops is big right now, docker etc. If someone wants to work as a SRE what are some hot things they should be looking at?

Ruth: Its difficult because for SRE at scale, you can’t really do it as a side project. Sure you can spink up a docker container and get some familiarity there it’s not going to be the same…

Tomiwa: Actually you know what, sorry, scrap that question. Forget about that question. The better question is, I don’t know if I already asked this but whatever we’ll do it live. If someone wants to work for software engineer at a tech company what should they be doing right now.

Ruth: It depends on the company. If its a large company Google, Facebook, Amazon, Pinterest, there’s an application timeline and basically there’s an algorithm to get in. You put in your application for August or September. You study really hard. You read the bible, which is Cracking the Coding Interview in this context and you just spend a lot of time just grinding on questions. I think it will take a few months to get good. Of studying really hard and forsaking some of your grades because this is more important. And then you go for the coding interview. I think Even at my best I would fail one out of 3 onsite interviews.

Study hard. Apply wide.

Tomiwa: Any advice on how to network? [28:15]

Ruth: Hackathons, meetups. It’s super, super important to talk to people who are actually working in the industry, the company that you want to work for. There is so much insider information right? It’s like studying really hard for the coding interview. Students don’t know that they need to do that. They don’t know what to expect in terms of how long it will take to get good at this. So it’s really easy to start and be like “Oh I’m not cut out for this”. I’m just bad at this.” But like no, it takes everybody a long time to get good. People are just grinding harder than you… and forsaking their school to do it.

Long Term Plan (1,5 25 years): Raising a Family While Building a Career

Tomiwa: There’s a question that I might scrap but I might keep it because it gets some interesting responses. Its the 1,5,25. What would you like to be doing, where do you see yourself 1 year, 5 years and 25 years from now?

Ruth: Oh gosh, So I got married this summer and we are actually expecting a baby in May.

Tomiwa: Double congratulations!

Ruth: Thank you. My thinking about this is that I’m into SRE and manufacturing engineering. It’s going to take me a long time to get really good at these things. To the level that I want to be at. To the level where you are a senior engineer and you can really pick and choose the impact that you want to make.

So I am hoping that while I raise kids, I can build those skills. And then i have a few people at work, whose kids are like seven years younger then me. So they’re almost my parents age and their emazing engineers, still being so productive, they know so much and so good at what they do. So I’m like they had kids when they were my age and their still working adns till productive and their kids old enough to take care of themselves. I think it will be good for me to have kids now and slowly build up my skills as I go along and then really have the impact I want, when my kids are old enough to take care of themselves.

What are you Currently Obsessed with?

Tomiwa: There’s a question that I found recently from the Gary Vaynerchuk Youtube channel. The question is what are you currently obsessed with. This can be anything. It can be apodcast, a new book, Youtube channel, Instagram account, restaurant, activity, anything. What are you currently obsessed with?

Ruth: A bit of context, I mentioned that I have this manufacturing engineering job and it actually pays money so I’m not negative on my projects now in terms of money. But I got it because I was working on this growbucket project, and someone introduced me to Kevin who is the CEO of ecoqube. I was joining their engineering meetings for a few months. He invited me to go to China with him for a few weeks. I asked my manager, please please can I go. I did I was at their factory it was so cool, helping them develop their product, put it into production, then he hired me after that.

So I’m working there part time. So I’ve been thinking a lot about products and so one product that Robin my husband bought this year. It’s really simple its a device that cooks eggs. So you plug it in, there’s only one button, it’s the power button. There’s this little cup where if you want soft boiled eggs you put in a bit less water, if you want hard boiled eggs you put in more water.

There’s like a little plastic thing that you put the eggs on, it goe up to six eggs. There’s also a tool that you use to poke holes so it doesn’t explode.

When the water boils up it dings the timer and then your eggs are done and its perfect. Their exactly what you want every time and its so low effort. That has been a real inspiration for me. If you eat eggs everyday or every overt day, then this is huge. You are saving so much time and so much effort, so much mental energy of thinking about cooking. Its one product that does one thing, really well. So I’m like Okay, that’s something where if we have a product, I have to figure out what is it solving and make sure it solves that really well. Everything else is extraneous.

[Tomiwa’s Note: The egg Machine I THINK she is referring to is the Dash Rapid Egg Cooker.]

General Life Advice

Tomiwa: Second last question, is general life advice. To give some context before you answer this question. You mentioned something very, very interesting about working in a hospice. Then I know there was an article that went viral a while back about the nurse that interviewed a bunch of people asking if they have any regrets, in their final stages of their life, on their deathbed what have the learnt. Again, your answer does not have to be that deep or that profound. But any general life advice or career advice, anything you want to tell people what would tyou say?

Ruth: To not regret their life?

Tomiwa: No that’s what I’m saying. Based on your life so far, what are some of the biggest lessons learnt.

Ruth: I don’t know. I guess try not to worry so much.

Tomiwa: Nice, very simple…

Ruth: Well I’m in a very privileged position because I have a job that pays the bills and the job is 40 hours a week so I can spend my spare time doing whatever. So when you are in that position, if you’re in school ad you have student loans and you’re going to be okay. Don’t worry so much, spend your time furthering whatever you find interesting. It’s always worth it to try new things just in case you find something that is your place in the world.

Tomiwa: Awesome, so if anyone found anything you’re saying interesting and they want to talk to you a bit more how can they find you.

Ruth: Just Google me.

Tomiwa: You can also find her on LinkedIn,. I think LinkedIn is the safest route because its the most public facing and it’s the least creepy.

Ruth: I don’t’ check it super often but if you google Ruth Grace Wong and you find my contact information you can reach out to me.

Tomiwa: Ruth, thank you for your time.

That concludes our interview with Ruth. I hope you enjoyed it and got something useful out of it.

Here are some links on some of the topics we covered this episode:

Links

Note: This transcript has been summarized for brevity, if you would like to help transcribe the full interview, edit videos or help Atila TV in any way, please send an email to tomiwa@atila.ca.

Tech
Medical School
Internships
Software Engineering

--

--

Tomiwa
Atila Tech

Written by Tomiwa

340 Followers
Editor for

Software Engineer. Founder, Atila, https://atila.ca/ @atilatech, edtech website fixing education funding in Canada. https://tomiwa.ca

Help

Status

About

Careers

Press

Blog

Privacy

Terms

Text to speech

Teams