Life at Google with Emily Bennett

Google.com is the most visited website in the world, and the company that backs it, Google, is one of the largest tech companies in the world. As a result, many computing students see it as a dream company to work for, but what’s it like actually working there? Emily Bennett, UQ computer science honours alum & current Googler, shares her experiences from her first year at the company, as well as advice on how you can make it there, too.

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Intro/Outro Music: Awesome Call by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3399-awesome-call
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Episode Transcript

Olivia (00:00):
Hello, and welcome to The Router, the official podcast
of the UQ Computing Society,where we explore the human side
of tech.
I'm your host, Olivia, and onthis week's episode, we'll be
talking to Emily about herexperience at Google.

(00:24):
So tell me a little bit aboutyourself, Emily.

Emily (00:28):
So, I studied at UQ for four years.
I did a Bachelor of Science,majoring in computer science.
And then I did computer sciencehonours for a year.
And, uh, I now work at Google.
I started at the beginning ofthe year.
Yeah.

Olivia (00:50):
Cool.
So, you went from just acomputer science degree to
straight into Google.
Did you have any internships atGoogle along the way?

Emily (01:00):
I didn't actually, while I was at uni, I tutored, so
tutoring was kind of the jobthat I did throughout uni.
I didn't really do any industrystuff.
Didn't really do anyinternships.
I kind of wish I had lookingback now, but, tutoring is a
good time.
And I'm doing industry now, Iguess.
So, yeah.

Olivia (01:19):
How did you, like, prepare yourself to get into
Google?

Emily (01:27):
I guess I got, uh, the recruiter reached out to me
basically.
Um, and I had kind of a chatwith them on the phone and then
I had a chat with a technicalperson, like a little virtual
interview.
For those, there wasn't a hugeamount of prep that needed to be

(01:47):
done.
Uh, they were just kind ofchats.
And then the interview even wasonly an hour, just one technical
problem.
For the main portion ofinterviews, which was four
interviews over a day.
I did, you know, the standard, abunch of LeetCode, a bunch of

(02:09):
HackerRank preparing for that.
Not as much as I probably shouldhave done, but you know, a
little bit of that.

Olivia (02:18):
Yeah, I feel like that's , um, pretty standard.
Do you have any like tips forgetting through the technical
interview part?
Because I know that a lot ofpeople can find if they
encounter a question that theyget a little bit stumped on, um,
they find it difficult to getthrough.

Emily (02:38):
The technical interview process from the outside is, is
super intimidating.
Like it looks reallyintimidating, but in reality,
the interviewers that I had formy on-sites, which are the full
hour long interviews werereally, really lovely, like
super nice.
You can kind of tell they wantyou to succeed.
So if you get stuck or if youdon't understand the question,

(03:01):
you literally just ask them andoften they'll like give you
little hints, and help you alongyour way.
Cause they, they kind of wantyou to get to a solution.
That's the ideal outcome foreveryone.
So just ask, ask any questionsthat you have, that kind of
thing.

Olivia (03:21):
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah, that's a good tip.
I am glad to hear that they arefriendly and trying to make it,
so yeah, now that you are atGoogle, what do you get up to?

Emily (03:33):
Yeah, so I work within the next billion users team so
NBU, and NBU is kind of aimed atmaking new products and even
versions of existing products,which are more accessible to
people who are using theinternet for the first time.
So especially in countries whereslow internet and low-end

(03:55):
devices are much more common.
And my, my kind of day to dayinvolves working on a Flutter
app.
So Flutter is the framework, theGoogle framework, for writing
Android and iOS apps.
So I do kind of front-endFlutter development, on a team
where we also have some webfront-end people and a bunch of

(04:16):
server people and projectmanagers and UX people.
And we kind of work on a projecttogether.

Olivia (04:25):
Cool.
When you started with Google, doyou kind of know where you were
going in terms of teams and didyou have like much of a choice
there?

Emily (04:33):
So the hiring process, you go through all of the
interviews and then after yourfour on-sites, you have, um, at
the hiring committee process,which is basically where they
look at your interviews and theydecide whether your outcomes
there and what your interviewerssaid about you, make you a good
fit for the company.

(04:53):
And then you go through teamplacement, which is basically
where they see if you are a goodfit for any of the teams that
are currently looking to add newpeople.
And as part of that process, Igot to chat to my current
manager.
We have a little like 30 minutephone conversation, and he got
to ask me questions and I got toask him questions.
And he couldn't really tell me ahuge amount about the product,

(05:16):
because it's, it wasn't publicyet.
But, I knew a little bit aboutthe team that I was going on too
.
And I, I had like spoken to mymanager before actually
starting.

Olivia (05:27):
And are you enjoying it?
Do you feel like it was theright team for you?

Emily (05:31):
Yeah, the team is really lovely.
It's, it's quite like a tightknit really friendly environment
to be working in.
We're a fairly new team.
So, uh, the word that theyalways use is scrappy.
Like we, we kind of have to getthings done and move quite
quickly.
So the team is a really, reallygreat place to be.

Olivia (05:54):
Yeah, that's really awesome.
What are the other kinds ofteams out there that, um, I
suppose you're around?

Emily (06:01):
Yeah.
So there are a couple of otherNBU, uh, projects that, that are
around us, so that they're thepeople that we are kind of
nearest to in the office.
And then Google Sydney also has,uh, the main one is Google Maps,
which actually started it atSydney.
Google Photos.
We have a little bit ofpayments, and then a couple of

(06:24):
other teams kind of scatteredhere and there.
We also have a bunch of GoogleCloud operations that happen in
Sydney.

Olivia (06:32):
Very cool.
So within that, I guess, like,because you're all working in, I
suppose, the, the team that isdealing with the bleeding edge
and like, new technologies atGoogle, what kind of new
technologies do you think you'dbe really excited to work on?

Emily (06:52):
Hm, that's a good question.
So I work with the Flutterframework, and we specifically
are making an Android app.
Most of the time that involveswriting Dart code, which is kind
of what Flutter interfaces with,but occasionally do have to
touch native Android code.
And for us that means Java.
But as of quite recently, theofficial Google recommendation

(07:16):
for Android development isactually Kotlin.
And especially since I have ahousemate who works with Kotlin
and raves about it constantly, Iwould be kind of interested in
starting to use some Kotlin, Irealize that's not new per se,
but it is new to me, so I wouldbe pretty keen to do that.

(07:36):
Yeah.

Olivia (07:36):
And I guess it's like quite different and it's meant
to be like, I suppose, the newway to do Android specific
stuff?

Emily (07:47):
Yeah.

Olivia (07:55):
And in terms of what you have, like already worked on,
what do you think, like has beenyour favorite part of working at
Google?

Emily (08:02):
Yup.
So my team specifically is,we're kind of doing a bunch of
testing of our product at themoment, and we've been doing a
bunch of research in places likeBrazil.
We've done Kenya, India, we'regoing to Mexico shortly, and
it's been super cool to see likedifferent perspectives on

(08:26):
technology and how it can beused.
And we've also had the chance tointeract directly with end
users, which has been superinteresting.
And, as much as it was kind ofterrifying knowing features that
I had written were live inproduction was pretty cool.
Uh, high pressure, but, verysatisfying.
Sorry.
That's been, that's been a coolpart of it.

Olivia (08:48):
Yeah.
Cool.
Yeah, I definitely in the littlebit of development that I have
done professionally, wheneveryour feature goes out, it's
very, very intimidating, scary,but then like seeing people
actually use it and being like,"Oh, you like, you've built in
this feature.
And it like works reallynicely."

Emily (09:12):
Yeah, absolutely.
Um, I would also say a cool partis, um, I guess this is not a
project specifically, but, uh,one of the cool things about
being at Google is inter-teamcommunication is like a big
thing.
So if anything on flutter is notworking, you can kind of
directly thing someone from theFlutter team or like the GPA
team where GPA is like one ofthe big Flutter users and you

(09:33):
can just kind of ping someoneand be like,"how do I do this?"
So that's pretty cool.

Olivia (09:37):
Oh, that is very cool.
It's yeah.
So I guess you do get to havelike a little bit of like
involvement with the other teamstoo.
Um, so I guess like looking alittle bit back on your like,
university experience now, um,what part of working in the

(10:02):
professional world, do you thinkthat university really didn't
prepare you for, or at leastbefore?

Emily (10:10):
That's a, that's a tricky question because, realistically
none of the technology that Iuse in my job today was taught
at uni, but I do think that uniis kind of less there to teach
you how to use the specifictools you'll need for your job,
because you're probably going tolearn those on the job anyway,
and more to give you the basicsand then kind of help you build
skills.

(10:30):
It'll let you adapt quickly tonew technologies.
Um, one thing that I would say,and I do kind of mean this in a
positive way, but universitygave me like a very skewed idea
of what teamwork would looklike, in the sense that at uni
group projects are kind of seenas generally not a really fun
time, in industry working on ateam where everyone contributes

(10:56):
and collaborate as well.
It's been a really pleasantsurprise in terms of how
teamwork actually looks.

Olivia (11:03):
That's always good to have, because I feel like a
lecturer has always like to say,"Oh, the teams you work in at
university, it's going to bejust like, when you work in a
professional team."

Emily (11:13):
Yeah.
And what a terrifying conceptthat would be! No, thankfully.

Olivia (11:20):
And so, like, I guess, on, on the other foot, would you
say that like, yeah, I guesslike the basic skills are really
what you do learn in university.
Do you have any, like favorite,like what your favorite courses
were that kind of helped you outgiven that?
Yeah.

Emily (11:40):
Um, I would say so the basics, like what you learn in
say CSSE2002, like thefundamentals of, uh, I guess
1001 is technically thefundamentals, but 2002 is where
you start writing kind of astructured code architecture.
And you start learning aboutthat.

(12:00):
That's really like thefundamentals.
And if you can get those down,um, that that'll put you in
really good footing for a job,um, in terms of actually getting
a job, you can't go wrong with,uh, COMP3506, algorithms and
data structures, um, really,really useful stuff for
interviews.
And I actually tutored thatcourse, which was a super good,

(12:22):
uh, thing to do, I think, inretrospect, because you get
really familiar with thematerial and, um, it definitely
came in handy for the whole likeinterview process.

Olivia (12:35):
So is there anything in university that you think you
would have wanted to dodifferently aside from like
working, maybe working in anindustry position?

Emily (12:49):
I don't know.
I think university is a goodtime to like, uh, learn new
things, you know, like, uh, tryall of the technology is really
get a feel for what you enjoydoing.
So that you have kind of an ideaof what you want to do after
university.
Like, for me, that was, uh, notreally doing industry stuff.
So I didn't really know whetherI wanted to go into industry

(13:10):
after university or whether Iwanted to go into kind of
academia do a PhD, that type ofthing.
But some people in general, like, if you know that you want to
work in industry, try out abunch of technologies, try out a
bunch of front- end, try out abunch of backend and kind of
work out what the thing that youwant to want to do is, and that

(13:32):
might save you some time in theworkplace, but yeah, just, I
guess, do more kind ofexperimenting with what I enjoy,
would have been maybe a thing todo, but I've gotten really lucky
even despite not doing that,I've ended up doing something
that I really enjoy.

Olivia (13:50):
That's fantastic.
Yeah.
I think in previous episodes ofthe podcast here, it's been like
a common piece of advice is toreally, uh, try a bunch of
different things.
And I guess we're prettyfortunate at like at UQ that we
have like lots of opportunities,like just here even like,

(14:13):
industry, because, you know,there's always like research
projects always a whole bunchof, fortunately we have like a
variety of subjects in a wholebunch of different areas to try
different things in.
I guess maybe moving back toGoogle a little bit, I'm

(14:36):
assuming your work from homenow?

Emily (14:38):
Yes, I am.

Olivia (14:40):
How have you kind of found that transition from in
person to being working fromhome?

Emily (14:49):
Yeah, quite devastating.
I really got a month or two ofthe free coffee situation before
having to head back to workingfrom home! I've actually been
working from home longer than Iwas working in the office.
Um, so it's kind of, this isjust kind of how it is now.
You know, this is what I'm usedto.
Google Sydney is, mostly workfrom home mode.

(15:11):
We have like a rotation goingwhere people can go back in.
I think we're at about 10%capacity on any given day.
But I don't know, working fromhome is not the greatest from
the perspective that you are alot more disconnected from your
team than you ordinarily wouldbe.
So, you lose that convenience ofjust kind of being able to tap

(15:34):
your colleagues on the shoulder.
When you have questions,questions, you have to like, uh,
actually message them.
You know, there's a record ofyou asking dumb questions.
But having said that, everyoneon my team has been super good
about trying to like emulatethose types of interactions over
video chat.
Um, and Google as a company haskind of been super supportive,

(15:56):
made sure that we haveeverything we need to work from
home.
So with that in mind, I thinkthings are going about as well
as they could be.

Olivia (16:04):
Yeah.
So like, where do you seeyourself kind of going at
Google, like further in thefuture?

Emily (16:15):
It's difficult to have a plan too far in the future at
the moment, given like any plansat the moment are kind of
staying in Australia.
At the moment I'm really happyon my team and I have no
intention of like trying to moveaway from that or anything like
that.
So I'm pretty content with whereI am at the moment.

(16:36):
Um, and then we'll kind of seehow things go in the future.
One of the nice things aboutGoogle as a company is that they
have offices all over the world.
And there are plenty of cases of, uh, people moving around
within the company at differentoffices.
So even on our team, we havepeople from all over the place.

(16:56):
We have someone who used to workin the Japan office.
We have someone from the NewYork office.
We have people from all over theplace.
So I think it would be reallycool to do some traveling, even
if it is within Google.
But yeah, we'll see how we go.
Yeah.

Olivia (17:14):
See how the world is, I suppose.

Emily (17:17):
Yeah, for sure.

Olivia (17:20):
Yeah.
I think, I think that prettymuch covers it for the Google
experience.
Is there anything you'd like tomaybe add, or maybe advice you'd
like to give to those out there,hoping to secure a position at
Google for graduate?

Emily (17:41):
I would say just kind of like doing what you're doing,
like when you're at uni, youknow, put the effort in to
actually engage with yourcourses because a lot of the
courses that we do at uni, insome way or another are going to
be useful for your job one day,and for the interview process as
well.
So try and like engage whileyou're there.

(18:01):
Um, I would say as well as that,there are a couple of things
that aren't really stressed atuni that it would be worthwhile
putting some time into.
So like, this is not necessarilygood for getting hired at
Google, but once you're atGoogle, it's a reasonable, it'll
be a useful thing to have if youknow, about like version

(18:23):
control, which is something thatUQ doesn't really do.
So there were a couple of thingsthat are kind of fundamentals of
working in industry that UQmaybe doesn't stress as much as
it should.
I think UQ has recently starteddoing version control and a
couple of the fundamentalcourses, but that is a newish
thing.
So, uh, make sure that you haveall the basics in place and you

(18:46):
should be good to, you know, getin and start, start working.

Olivia (18:53):
Yeah.
That's good advice.
Like make sure your foundationsare good and then it should be
good to extend yourself further.

Emily (19:00):
Yeah, absolutely.

Olivia (19:02):
Okay.
Well, um, yeah.
Thank you so much for joiningme, Emily.

Emily (19:07):
No worries.
Thank you for having me!

Olivia (19:10):
That's all we have for you today.
Please join us again in twoweeks from now for our next
episode, and until then comejoin our community to talk about
it at slack.uqcs.org.