Industry Expert Interview – Exploring Career Paths and Industry Trends

 

    Today I had the pleasure of interviewing my family friend, J.P. I met J.P during my first few years of college when I was a Math Major. At the time, he was going to school for computer science and was already in an internship. I decided to interview J.P because he has been in the field for over 8 years and has worked multiple positions. His first job was at Provident Credit Union near San Francisco as a Programmer Analyst. There, he worked in Online Banking and back-end development. He worked there for two years before he secured a job at The Naval Information Worker's Center in San Diego. There he did desktop application work, database design, and cloud architecture.

    I asked him what his biggest obstacles were in those roles. He said that at The Naval Information Worker's Center, the biggest challenge that he had, other than loads of government paperwork, was knowing where to find help. He explains that as Computer Science workers, you have online resources to help with your work, but nothing compares to getting guidance from another expert. He also explains that you are constantly learning on your own. He was not taught cloud architecture in school and had to learn while working at Provident Credit Union.

    He stresses that being able to do projects on your own is a critical skill someone in computer science should have. Computer Science is such a fast-paced field, you have to be constantly learning. He says it feels like you are back in school every year. He remembers when Docker came out, it changed the whole industry. So, people who didn't know Docker had to go and learn it. Same with AI today. He says that it's worth getting to get into Machine Learning since it is such a huge trend in today's tech industry. He does say to be wary of Language Learning Models.

    J.P graduated college in 2017, so he has seen the industry change in many different ways. Around the time he graduated, Meta's React.js framework was really taking off, and that people in the industry at the time believed that that would be their future. He reiterates that this is another challenge that you face in the industry is that you don't take classes on the upcoming trends, so you have to do a lot of learning on your own.

    J.P ends the interview with these final words to Computer Science students.

    "Get an internship. Getting your foot in the door is the absolute hardest part. If you can make something and deploy it, that's huge. You can go into AWS and buy a domain name and just deploy a website with your own back end and your own front end. So, in an interview you can tell them, 'This is what I made, you can go look at it right now.' If you graduate and you don't have either of those, it is going to be incredibly difficult to find a job. The industry has its ups and downs, but once you have some professional experience for at least a year, you are golden in terms on a long-term career. "

    After hanging up the phone, I sat and thought about what these words meant to me as a computer science student. I always knew the importance of securing an internship and having a deployable project but hearing it straight from an expert motivated me to get started as soon as possible. If it is as difficult to get a job as he says, I know that I should start working on my future portfolio now. I very much value a degree, but this interview showed me that there is still a lot more to learn. I am choosing to think of this as exciting that we get to witness so much change and learn alongside other experts, rather than nervous that my academics might not have prepared me for future trends.