Interview with Thomas Brouwer, Yelp Product Manager - 1
We had a very informative and enjoyable chat with Thomas Brouwer. He is working as Product Manager in Yelp. He is responsible for User Location Intelligence Team. If you are interested in being a PM or just want to wonder more in the world of PM, you should definitely check it! It’s also very informative about Oxbridge, PhD in UK, internships and many more!
First part will be focusing on the dutch education system, UK university admission process, Cambridge and internships
Click for the second part of the interview
1 - Could you introduce yourself briefly to our readers? Who you are? What do you do?
Sure thing! My name is Thomas Brouwer. I work as a Product Manager at Yelp, based in Hamburg, Germany.
Originally, I was born and raised in the Netherlands, in a small town near Utrecht, before moving to the United Kingdom to do my bachelor’s in Computer Science. I decided to stay on there to do a PhD in machine learning, working on new Bayesian statistical methods for predicting the outcomes of biological experiments. During that period I also did some software engineering internships in San Francisco, before taking a year out to travel. I now live and work in Hamburg, Germany.
2 -Let’s start from the beginning. How was your high school experience, and how did your interest evolve to technical subjects?
For those unfamiliar with the Dutch high school system (probably everyone), high school starts when we are 12. Towards the end of primary school, your teachers from the past eight years sit down together and discuss what your strengths and weaknesses are. If you are an academically-minded student, they give out a recommendation for you to go to “vwo”, which is a six year long high school. At the end of this, you can do a degree at what we call a “universiteit”. Students that have shown strengths and interest in more practical areas might go to “vmbo”, which is a four year high school. If you are in the middle, you go to “havo”. Both those levels also allow you to go into further education, although we don’t call those “universiteiten” (but in the US or the UK, these would still be called universities). Fortunately, there are many opportunities to move from one level to another if the initial recommendation was incorrect, and some schools offer multiple or all levels.
I went to a “vwo” school, which is more academically focused and six years long. I was also in a special bilingual class where we were given a lot of extra English classes. The first three years (the “onderbouw”) everyone does the same subjects, including sciences, culture, four languages (Dutch, English, French, and German). After that, you can choose a direction (sciences, languages, culture) and some subjects. I always preferred mathematics and sciences over the rest, so I chose a science-heavy direction with extra maths courses for the last three years (the “bovenbouw). I also did computer science, which was my first introduction into the field.
In high school I, like many kids, played a lot of video games. I, therefore, started thinking about doing a degree in video game development. Utrecht University actually has a really good course in that area. However, in the end, I did not go in that direction, instead opting for a more general computer science degree. This was for a couple of reasons. First of all, computer science will give you more career options at the end. Secondly, I realized that in game development you usually either build the game engine, or you build the game and storyline — but at large companies, you usually don’t get to do both, which is what attracted me: the larger picture.
Finally, I had started looking into doing a degree abroad. My older sister had gone to an international school in Wales to finish her degree, and had an amazing time there, so I started thinking about applying abroad. Even at my school, with the bilingual stream and extra English we did, not many students considered going abroad (three out of fifty applied, two including myself went). But having seen my sister do it, I felt tempted to try, and my family were very supportive of it. So instead of staying in the Netherlands, I applied for computer science degrees in the United Kingdom.
3- It’s interesting to hear that you decided to study in the UK, and not even applied in the US, how come? Could you describe the UK university admissions process and your experience?
That’s a good question. I actually considered applying in the United States, and attended an information event about how to do so. The US has so many universities, but when we think of applying to the US, we often mean places like MIT or Stanford or Harvard. These really are the elite universities, and they get an insane number of applications — usual acceptance rates are below 3%. That means they can be incredibly selective, and are very demanding. I had the best grades in my school, but I would have struggled to get in academically.
On top of that, US universities care a lot about extracurricular activities: things you did outside of the school, and especially those that demonstrate leadership skills. I always joke that you need to have cured cancer in high school to get into these universities, but there is some truth to it — they want you to be incredibly assertive and enterprising, and to have demonstrated this. At the age of 16, I was mainly studying and playing video games, so I had no chance here.
Fortunately, there are amazing universities right next door to the Netherlands (also in the Netherlands to be fair), that care more about your academic capabilities, than you becoming the next world leader. I, therefore, decided to apply to universities in the United Kingdom, with my main university being Cambridge.
The way university applications work in the UK is through one central system and website called UCAS. You can select up to five universities to apply to, and you write one personal statement and obtain one recommendation letter, which is used across all five applications. The typical university deadline is mid January, although for Cambridge and Oxford the applications close mid October (the year before), so you have to be well prepared. You can also only apply to either Oxford or Cambridge, to ensure they are not overloaded with applications.
The personal statement should outline your motivations for studying your chosen degree, ideally exhibiting some evidence that you are interested in this subject (think olympiads, internships, extra courses), and you can add some extracurricular activities at the end as well. The recommendation letter is usually written by one, although in my case several, teachers, commenting on your academic abilities. For “Oxbridge”, they usually want to hear that you are in the top of your year. After submitting your application, you can submit one more personal statement about why you want to study at Oxford or Cambridge. Perhaps you went to an open day (I highly recommend this!) and had a great experience there.
The next stage is the interview. Usually, you will be informed around November whether you are invited to an interview, which takes place in December. I had two interviews, both involving solving puzzles related to computer science concepts. There are a lot of scare stories about Oxbridge interviews, like being asked “Why are you wearing a watch” and then they watch you squirm and struggle to figure out what they want to hear (in this case, you should comment on why people wear watches and the value of timekeeping in modern society). But the gist of it is: they want to see how you think, not how much you memorize. They intentionally ask you questions that are a bit out of the ordinary, to assess your thinking process. After these two interviews, I also had one maths test, that did test knowledge, but the interviews are the most important.
In January, a letter will arrive to your home, which delivers the good or bad news. If you have been accepted into the university, they actually give you a “conditional offer”, which means they set certain grade requirements that you have to meet, usually for your high school grades. If you meet them, then you will start in October! If not, then they can decide to accept you anyway. This allows them to give out more offers than there are places.
Studying in the UK might sound daunting and, more importantly, expensive. And admittedly, it is not cheap. I was lucky to be in the last year where tuition fees were £3,000 per year, but this has now gone up to £9,000 for pretty much all universities (although apparently in Scotland it’s a bit cheaper). That means that across a three year degree, and including living costs, you will spend around £50,000. Fortunately, you can always take out loans from the UK government, and they also have scholarships for students from poorer backgrounds that cover the tuition fees. Even if you are from a poorer background, I would highly recommend applying. Oxford and Cambridge sometimes have a reputation of being very elite and only admitting rich students, but this is very much not true — none of my friends went to private schools.
My advice: just apply and see what happens. Worse case you get rejected. Best case you get accepted, and you can then decide whether it’s worth it for you!
4- Congrats on Cambridge! It’s quite a long run. Can you give some information about university and courses structures? Also, How was being a Cambridge student?
So I have already described the application steps and timeline above, but there is another complication. Cambridge and Oxford are both so-called “collegiate” universities, which means they consist of many individual colleges — Cambridge has 31, and Oxford has 39.
Each college is like a campus, with a dining hall, residences, sports fields, and so on. Each student becomes part of one specific college during their degree (although you can apply to another college if you do a second degree), and this college is responsible for your education and residence. In fact, for your undergraduate degree at least, you don’t apply to the university — you apply to a specific college, and this college then decides whether they want to offer you a place to study. (If you can’t decide on a college, you can choose an “open application”, and then any college can invite you for interviews).
If you get into the college, you automatically also get into the university. You will usually eat and sleep, and join the football or frisbee teams of your college. Each college takes students from nearly all degrees, which means your social circles will consist of science students, medics, those doing languages, arts, or history. This makes for a very fun and diverse social setting, and I personally loved it.
The years consist of three nine-week terms, during which you get lectures (these are given at the university’s departments, and all computer science students at the 31 different colleges get the same lectures) and supervisions — almost private lessons. These usually consist of two or three students, and one supervisor (the lecturer, or a postdoc). The supervisor will set you exercises to do beforehand, and you have to hand in your work or essay the day before. This work is then graded by the supervisor, who can then use the hour-long supervision to make sure you truly understand the material. I believe these supervisions are what makes the Oxbridge education system exceptional.
Exams are taken only once per year — at the end of the third term. Over the three terms you are absorbing (and letting go of) so much information, and at the end you have to try to understand and memorize it all. Fortunately, you usually already understand all the material due to the supervisions, so you just have to revise it. However, this is a very intense way of learning and studying: you have a lot of lectures and supervisions, and on top of that college social life is very active. We call it “work hard play hard”. On the bright side, you get 5 weeks of Christmas holiday, 5 weeks for Easter, and 3.5 months over the summer, for example to do internships or go traveling.
5 - I see that you made 2 internships in your bachelor years, Broadcom and Palantir. How did you land these internships? How was the experience in these companies and what were your takeaways?
Internships are an incredibly important part of your university time, and I would highly highly recommend doing at least one. There are several reasons for this. First of all, it lets you experience what working in a real company is like as a software engineer or product manager or whatever role you are doing. Studying a course is very different from the kind of job you would do afterward, so testing whether this is something you want to do after university will save you a lot of time after graduation.
Secondly, it will look great on your CV. Even if you end up in a completely different field after university, the fact that you have done an internship proves to the company you are applying to that you are hard-working. And if you do like the role you interned in, you will be able to fast track your career and jump-start into more prestigious companies. For example, it will be hard to get a job out of university at Google or Facebook without any internships — if not impossible. Especially in computer science, where there is a culture of doing internships, all your fellow students will be doing internships, and you will have to compete with them.
The last reason is, these internships usually pay quite well (especially in the US), so you can even save up some money for traveling (or partying).
Speaking of my own experience, during my undergraduate degree I did two summer internships. At Cambridge all the computer science students were trying to line up an internship, ideally at Google or Facebook. However, these places are super hard to get into, so most people ended up doing an internship at a smaller company in their first year, and then applying to Silicon Valley companies in the second year.
My university organizes a Careers Fair once a year around November, where lots of companies have a stand, give out goodies, and try to get you to apply for full-time jobs or internships. Most universities have these, and I highly recommend going to them. Signing up at these fairs can sometimes fast track your applications (compared to applying online), and some companies even do on-site interviews the next day for those who signed up.
In my first year I interned at Broadcom, which is a semiconductor company. I signed up at the Careers Fair, and was then invited for an interview at their offices in Cambridge. I think they actually wanted someone in the second year of their degree, but they still offered me the internship, which I accepted. I did not have a particularly interesting summer. Cambridge is pretty empty when all the students are gone, my colleagues were all super nice but everyone ate lunch behind their desk and didn’t go out for drinks after work, and I wasn’t loving software engineering. Still, it was a good work experience, and looked good on my CV.
In my second year, I started applying to companies in Silicon Valley — Google, Facebook, Dropbox, everything. The application process for these companies tend to start much earlier in the US, September or October, but I didn’t know this, so by the time I applied I had missed most deadlines. However, a good friend of mine was working for Palantir in London, and I liked the sound of the company, so he referred me (they were also at the Careers Fair in November). They had the longest internship interview process I have ever experiences — starting with two phone interviews that were fairly straightforward, then three back-to-back on-site interviews at their offices (everyone was really nice and motivated), and finally a short Skype call with one of the co-founders of the company (at that time he screened every single person who joined the company). At the end of it all, they offered me an internship as a Forward Deployed Engineer (a software engineer slash consultant) in their Palo Alto office, which of course I accepted.
Palantir sorted out all the visa stuff, and provided accommodation in Palo Alto (sadly, sharing a room with someone who snored so loudly I had to wake him up to fall asleep myself). I have very mixed feelings about this internship. The people were amazing — everyone was extremely motivated and clever and sociable. The perks were great — we got three meals a day, unlimited snacks and drinks, game rooms. The work was interesting — I was on the philanthropy team, so I got to work with charities. However, the work culture was insane — people worked evenings (“quickly check my email after dinner”), weekends (“free snacks in the office, why not?!”), and it’s so easy as an impressionable 19 year old to get absorbed into this culture. I still have regrets about not making more of my time during that summer, and instead of working so much.
I thought I had done a good job at my internship. Although I had never done web development before, I had created a custom data entry portal for one of the charities we worked with. However, after finishing I had a debrief with my manager, and he told me that they hadn’t been super happy with my output. My code was messy. I hadn’t used Git enough. It didn’t work. To say that I was disappointed was an understatement. I mainly blamed myself, and it gave me a lot of insecurities about my abilities as a software engineer for years to come. Later I was able to put it into more perspective: they hadn’t given me enough guidance, they didn’t check in with me at all during the internship, and I WAS super inexperienced. So it’s okay to fail. I also learned to ask for help more proactively, and to ask for more guidance when I feel out of my depth. So a mixed summer — lots of great experiences and lessons learned, but also some regrets.
My advice: Internships are an easy way to create a strong CV and fast track your career, so I highly recommend doing it. That all being said, is it also totally fine to take a summer off and to go traveling. Spending all year studying and then going straight into internships can be exhausting, and you need to be careful not to overwork yourself. In my case, between my bachelor’s and PhD degrees, I was initially going to do an internship in the summer. I actually cancelled it and went backpacking through Australia instead — and it was the right decision.
