Entry-Level Positions for Aspiring Software Engineers at Google
Jay, a Google Software Engineer and Tech Lead, highlights several entry-level paths into the field beyond "joining as a software engineer directly," including "test engineer," "site reliability engineer (SRE)," and data science or data analyst roles. The latter, Jay notes, increasingly require programming skills and a similar "thought pattern" to software engineering, involving analyzing data to understand higher-level departmental goals.
Software Engineering, Entry-Level Jobs, Career Paths, Data Analysis, Site Reliability Engineering
Advizer Information
Name
Job Title
Company
Undergrad
Grad Programs
Majors
Industries
Job Functions
Traits
Jay Zelenkov
Software Engineer; Tech Lead
Munich University of Applied Sciences, 2012
N/A
Computer Science
Technology
Product / Service / Software Development and Management
International Student, Honors Student, Took Out Loans, Immigrant, Worked 20+ Hours in School, First Generation College Student
Video Highlights
1. Entry-level software engineers are in demand at Google and similar companies.
2. Alternative entry-level paths include test engineering, site reliability engineering (SRE), and data science/analysis.
3. Data science/analysis roles often require programming skills and analytical thinking, similar to software engineering.
Transcript
What entry-level positions are there in this field that an undergraduate college student might consider?
Software engineering offers many entry-level positions. Obviously, you can join us directly as a software engineer.
There are other paths into this field. A very common one is starting as a test engineer and working your way up into software engineering. Another common path is SRE, or Site Reliability Engineer. These are people who support infrastructure, operations, servers, and applications.
More and more people are also choosing paths in data science or data analysis. These roles increasingly require programming and coding. While the focus is on data analysis, you still need similar skills, like programming languages and the ability to reason about data to draw conclusions.
You also need to analyze higher-level departmental goals. When given a task, like running a calculation or providing data analysis, you can consider the reason behind it. You can think, "Why would they want this?" perhaps because they are building a feature or making a decision about it. These are similar thought patterns to those used in engineering.