7 Questions with Jennifer Petoff
Senior Program Manager and Head of Site Reliability Engineering Education, Google
Jennifer Petoff (she/her) has had a wide range of career experiences at Google and beyond. She considers herself a poster child for non-traditional careers for scientists. Jennifer is currently working in Dublin, Ireland, as a Senior Program Manager for the Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) team. She leads the SRE EDU program globally and is one of the co-editors of Google’s bestselling book Site Reliability Engineering: How Google Runs Production Systems.
Jennifer joined Google after spending eight years in the chemical industry. Her first six years were spent at the lab bench in Research and Development at Union Carbide Corporation and the Rohm and Haas Company, where she was credited as an inventor on eight patents. Jennifer went on to manage the MBA and PhD campus recruiting and university relations programs at Rohm and Haas. Jennifer holds a PhD in Chemistry from Stanford University and a BS in Chemistry and a BA in Psychology from the University of Rochester.
Jennifer was a volunteer Career Consultant for the American Chemical Society and regularly conducted PhD resume reviews and mock interviews. She has written a number of articles on effective job search strategies. Outside of work, Jennifer enjoys domestic and international travel, urban walks (she walks over 1,000 miles a year), and writing posts for her part-time travel blog Sidewalk Safari.
1. Where’s your hometown?
Buffalo, New York, USA. (But I’ve been living in Ireland for almost 10 years now.)
2. How did you get into STEM?
I love a good challenge. In high school, I found myself gravitating towards the sciences and, in particular, chemistry, because I was good at it. I recall people saying to me, “I always hated chemistry, it was my worst subject!” I went into chemistry simply because I found it super interesting, and it made me feel special. I was good at something that not everyone else is. I loved something that people tended to shy away from.
3. What is a piece of advice that you have found especially useful?
“No Opportunity Wasted.”
Phil Keoghan, host of The Amazing Race, wrote a book by this title. I wouldn’t be where I am today without making this my mantra. I’ve always been willing to take a risk and try something new even when it wasn’t the traditional or safe option. For example, I was a senior research scientist at the Rohm and Haas company making emulsion polymers that went into products like paint, adhesives, and personal care products. At the same time, I was a volunteer for campus recruiting. I got to go back to Stanford a few times a year, talk about the work that I was doing, and try to get people excited about working for Rohm and Haas. After doing that for a while, I found I was spending more and more time traveling to different universities and working with faculty as part of our technical community organization. Because of these volunteer commitments, I was in the right place at the right time and was offered the opportunity to transition to HR full time and lead University Relations for PhD programs for Rohm and Haas. It was a career transition I never imagined for myself, but I realized it was aligned with things I loved and thought it was totally worth giving it a shot. I didn’t want to waste the opportunity to learn something new and move in a different direction.
Fast forward two years later. Google found me on LinkedIn, and a recruiter reached out because of my experience leading university programs. The timing was terrible: my husband had just changed jobs, and we were in the process of moving from one part of Philadelphia to another. I almost turned down the request for a call, but then I remembered “no opportunity wasted” and figured what harm can there be in having a conversation. That call ended up changing my career trajectory, since it led to me leaving chemistry behind for good (at the least the day-to-day lab bench part of it) and moving to Google 13 years ago.
4. What’s a challenge you’ve faced, and how did you deal with it?
I remember being super excited about studying science when I was in high school. I vividly remember telling my high school chemistry teacher that I was planning to major in chemistry when I got to college. She literally *laughed out loud* and said, “You don’t have the patience to study chemistry.” I could have taken that to heart and lost my enthusiasm or doubted myself, but instead, I used that moment for inner strength. “I’ll show her!” I thought.
Not only did I go on to major in chemistry, but I completed a PhD in chemistry, and that grounding in STEM has proven to be an amazing foundation for my career. I may not be actively working in the lab, or even in the chemical industry anymore, but STEM gave me the building blocks that I could transfer across a huge range of roles and industries. Applying the scientific method, drawing conclusions and defending ideas with data, perseverance (90+% of what you try in research doesn’t work), being a careful observer, and learning how to troubleshoot a vast array of situations are all foundational skills that I use every day in my job as a program manager in tech.
5. What’s something you’ve done that you’re really proud of?
I’m proud of what I’ve done to promote Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) in Ireland. There are actually two things that I’m really proud of. The first is the work that I do as a 20% project to build skills, raise awareness, and encourage students pursuing a degree in Computer Science or a related field at a 3rd level institution (uni or IT) in Ireland to apply for internships and full time roles at Google. Before we started the program, we didn’t get a ton of applications and didn’t hire a lot of interns from schools in Ireland into SRE, and now we do!
I’m also super proud to be a co-editor of the SRE Book. The book got its start here in Ireland with 2 of the 4 editors based here in Dublin. We published the book with O’Reilly in 2016, and it became a bestseller. The SRE Book represents contributions from over 70 people representing over 500 years of Google production experience. This is, by far, the coolest project that I’ve worked on in my career.
6. What are you most excited about right now, in or outside of STEM?
I absolutely love to travel and experience new places. I draw great energy from novel experiences. Living in Dublin, there are so many amazing places to explore in Ireland and beyond. I’m also super excited about sharing these experiences with others on my blog (Sidewalk Safari) and through the photos that I post on Instagram.
7. What is your favorite book or movie?
My favorite book is Getting Things Done by David Allen. This book took me from being a disorganized mess and a ball of stress to being an organizational and productivity ninja. People often underestimate the power of the simple things in advancing their careers. For example, doing what you say you’re going to do when you say you’ll do it and replying to emails in a timely manner; these small things build trust and credibility. Who gets the new and exciting projects? Is it the person where emails and communication tend to go into a black hole? No. The best opportunities go to those who get things done. Getting Things Done gives you an amazing system to stay organized and ensure nothing falls through the cracks. Maximize productivity while minimizing stress.
