My Google Journey (7)

Day 7 (6/1)

A friendly pyramid of turtles at my desk (courtesy of my hosts)

Activities:

• Watched various online workshops, including an old one titled “Life of an Intern”
• Received and began working on a starter project to get familiarized with the codebase.

What I Learned Today:

• At a large company like Google, personal initiative is key. The industry average for the number of people under one manager is increasing tremendously, and that means it’s getting harder and harder for managers to check in one-on-one with the people under them. Instead, you need to make sure you’re taking on the responsibility to find and do good work because no one will be able to do that for you.
• While Git doesn’t take that long to get set up, it’s 2 factor authentication is finicky on the command line.
• People at Google don’t take themselves too seriously at any level. At a company-wide presentation on TPUs, many — including most engineers — did not understand the very technical talk they were giving. However, people still tried to have a good time and didn’t make anyone feel guilty for not getting everything.

Reflection:

Masa — one of the many cafeterias in Mountainview

Today felt relatively slow because we haven’t yet decided what we’ll be doing for our starter project to get more familiar with the codebase. Thus, in anticipation, I decided to explore other resources that Google has and I wasn’t disappointed. I’ve found a trove of videos and lessons that I want to be sure that I watch. I think this constant learning is incredibly important, not only to make sure I take advantage of everything possible at Google, but also because I cannot forget that even when I’m here, I’m never at the top of my game if I stop learning. We must constantly keep growing or risk getting left behind in the fast-moving world of tech.