FTG 0010 - Career Advice for Coders & Non-Coders with Google Engineer & Tech Leader Jim Durrell '94 '05g

Guest Bio:

Jim Durrell ’94 Eng ’05g Bus is a senior engineer at Google in Pittsburgh working on the AdBrain machine learning infrastructure. Before joining Google, Jim was CTO at Health Monitoring Systems doing public health reporting and VP at McKesson building automated pharmacies. He earned a BS in Computer Science with Honors from the College of Engineering in 1994 and earned his MBA from the Smeal College of Business in 2005. He's happy to talk about technology or just about anything else, and you can find him on LionLink.

Episode Specifics:

Jim shares his story and insights for all Scholars including

· The value of engaging classmates and friends as resources to inform your major and career choices

· Finding non-major related clubs and the opportunities those can present

· Solving real-life problems for real-world experience

· Byzantine problems in computer science

· How job searching has changed since the 1990s – and how it hasn’t!

· The differences between front-line/entry-level roles and leadership roles in tech companies

· Adjusting to your first management role and then senior leadership roles

· The value of getting an MBA – particularly from the Smeal College of Business

· What it’s like elevating to the C-Suite

· The overlap of managers and mentors and how to identify and approach mentors

· Creative solutions for complex problems

· What machine learning is

· What it’s like working at Google!

· Finding red and green flags during the interview process

· Thoughts on being not only a Scholar Alum but a parent of a Schreyer Scholar

· The importance of recognizing and honoring your support system

· Ideas for approaching professional development in internships and after graduation

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Credits & Notes:

This show is hosted, produced, and edited by Sean Goheen ‘11 Lib (Schreyer). 

The artwork was created by Tom Harrington, the College’s Web Developer. 

The sound effect is “Chinese Gong,” accessed via SoundBible used under Creative Commons License. 

The theme music is “Conquest” by Geovane Bruno, accessed via Pixabay and used under Creative Commons License.