Minh Tri Pham: “Working at Facebook was an incredible experience”
Minh comes from Prague, but that did not stop him from getting to the University of Pennsylvania, graduating from Yale and scoring an internship at Facebook. How did he do it?
So how did you score a job at Facebook?
It was a pretty straightforward process for me because Facebook recruits at Yale, which is the university I attend. I also got a referral from a friend of mine, which helped a lot. I’d suggest getting a referral whenever anyone applies for a job or internship, applying online is often like sending your resume to a black hole!
Then I went through a few rounds of technical interviews that tested the knowledge of algorithms and data structures; Interviewers want to know if the applicant is able to apply these theoretical concepts to solve real world problems. Eventually I got an offer.
What was it like to work for the company?
Working at Facebook was an incredible experience. Even though I was just an intern, I pushed code to production in the first week! One of the company’s mottos is “Move fast and break things,” and Facebook operates just like that. During meetings, engineers would discuss new features and improvements, and someone would start working on them the same day!
What I also really valued about Facebook was transparency. All employees have access to all information about the company, what new features it is developing, what its long-term strategy is, and so on. By not hiding anything, Facebook does an excellent job aligning employees with its mission and motivating them to work hard.
Everyone is super friendly and open to talk to you about what they’re working on. It is overall a very happy place, and everyone loves working there.
What were your responsibilities at Facebook?
I worked on Places, which is a location detection infrastructure. It was a heavy back-end role, so I mostly wrote C++ code along with some PHP (Hack) and Python.
You come from Prague, but you never studied there. How did you get to the University of Pennsylvania and subsequently to Yale, where you graduated from Computer Science?
I went to a German international school in Prague, so you can say I always wanted to study abroad. In high school, I visited the States for a summer program at the University of Pennsylvania and fell in love with it. My classmates were all super enthusiastic, smart and motivated, so I decided to apply for a university in the US.
I am very grateful to have been admitted to Yale and have spent four amazing and formative years there.
Besides teaching me solid basics of computer science, the broad curriculum at Yale really helped me reinforce my intellectual curiosity. I had the opportunity to study Italian film, graphic design, or philosophy. But even more importantly, Yale helped me grow personally. I think I am way more mature, confident, and secure than I was before Yale.
Would you say it’s harder for Czechs and Slovaks to build a career on an international level or did you have to overcome the same obstacles as anyone else?
I didn’t have to face many because I attended an elite US university and have thus always been in the system. It might be more difficult for other Czechs and Slovaks but still very doable. There are more than dozen Czechs at Facebook, the same number at Google, and many more in the San Francisco Bay Area working on super cool things.
The reality is that most Czechs and Slovaks are equally technically adept as their American counterparts, if not more. What most Czechs and Slovaks lack is thinking big and being confident. Americans are often overly confident, but I think that is precisely what’s needed to start a successful company. But we shouldn't forget that many Czech companies, such as Apiary, Avocode, or CDN77, are killing it on the international scene.
Before joining Facebook, you tried teaching at Yale as a fellow teacher. What did the experience mean to you?
It was very rewarding because I got to know many other students and share my knowledge and passion with them. Several of my students went on to study Computer Science — you choose your concentration in the second or third year at Yale — and later started interesting projects and even companies.
Also, it helped me develop as a communicator and leader. It is surprisingly difficult to explain concepts that are so natural to me but novel to others.
Have you somehow reevaluated the traditional approaches to teaching programming?
I think it’s always important to get students work on real-life projects as soon as possible. Traditional approaches to teaching programming are very theoretical. While theory is crucial, it is necessary to complement it with practical applications, which are often way more fun and motivating.
After all, you learned to program at hackathons. What advantages and disadvantages did it have?
There is a significant distinction between computer science and programming. As the curriculum of my school — and many others — mostly focuses on the former and completely neglects the latter, hackathons were essential for me to develop my programming skills. Without them, I would only know how to analyze the complexity of different algorithms or use-cases for different data structures instead of writing working web and mobile applications.
In the US, most hackathons are open-themed, which means I had the freedom to work on whichever project interested me. As my friends and I could build whatever we wanted, it was always very enjoyable. I met many great people and even got my first internship thanks to hackathons!
You are a co-organizer of HackPrague, which took place from June 17 to 18. What is your motivation behind it?
As hackathons were such a big part of my professional development, I wanted to contribute to the community back home by organizing one. Most hackathons in Czechia are very corporate and focus on solving specific problems. HackPrague is a non-profit independent hackathon where participants are free to work on whatever they want! We brought cool speakers and mentors from top companies like Facebook, Google, Apiary, and over fifty participants from abroad. It was also one of the biggest Czech hackathons ever organized!
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