Favorite Parts of Being a Tech Lead at Google
Jay, a Software Engineer and Tech Lead at Google, finds the most rewarding aspect of his role to be "solving puzzles," whether that involves programming challenges or higher-level strategic problems like "how do we launch this part of the project?". This puzzle-solving approach, which has evolved throughout Jay's career, now incorporates collaboration with others as a key component of finding solutions.
Problem-Solving, Teamwork, Project Management, Leadership, Software 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. Jay perceives his daily tasks as solving puzzles, comparing them to solving crosswords or playing games like Wordle. This highlights the problem-solving nature of software engineering and the intellectual stimulation it offers.
2. As Jay's career progressed, the complexity of the puzzles changed, involving project launches, performance improvements, and revenue increases. This demonstrates the growth and evolving challenges within a software engineering career.
3. Collaboration plays a significant role in Jay's current problem-solving, involving aligning incentives and working with others. This emphasizes the teamwork and communication aspects often involved in high-level software engineering roles at companies like Google.
Transcript
What do you enjoy most about being in your current role?
My current role, the way I see my day-to-day, is solving puzzles. I perceive tech challenges or any new project, feature, or project launch as solving a crossword or playing Wordle.
It's similar to Solitaire; you look for better ways to do things. In my world, I use programming languages for that. Some people use mathematical or economic equations, while others use whatever logic they need for crosswords or Solitaire.
It's all puzzles, and I speak the language required to solve them. I enjoy solving these puzzles, and that's what drove me into this space in the first place.
As I've grown in my career, my puzzles have changed. Now, they involve how to launch a feature, how to release a part of a project, or how to make something X percent faster or increase revenue by X percent.
These are still puzzles, but the solutions require more than just programming. They involve collaboration and aligning incentives. However, I still perceive them as a fun and stimulating challenge.
At a higher level, these challenges aren't solved alone. You have to work with others, and I enjoy the aspects of collaboration a lot.