The Mom
In this article some legendary names of Polish algorithmics will come up, you will learn what it was like to work at Google in 2006 and I’ll tell you about a vastly different past career of one of MIMUW’s well known professors. But let’s begin with the main character.
Quick remider, this is the second article in a short series called “The Good, the Mom and the Ugly”. If you would like to see the first for some context, it’s here: https://janlanecki.medium.com/the-good-47936e3032fa
The Mom (this is about changing perspective)
The (not yet) Mom started off as a huge geek. We’ve all heard tales about people like her during our studies. A lot of us know them personally. She got her first computer, a Commodore, and started learning how to code in BASIC when she was 8. In highschool she hosted a computer science club for her friends and taught them about programming. But her interests were broader. She participated in several olympiads, she was a laureate of the Polish Olympiad in Philosophy, a finalist in Mathematics and almost a finalist in the Computer Science Olympiad. Due to her fondness of CS she chose it as her major and flourished.
After her first year of uni The Mom started looking for internships. She was passionate about photography and architecture, particularly Bauhaus, so she started looking at some crude German job sites (mind you, it was the early 2000s) and found an opening. During the first year of studies she had taken an extra course in objective programming, which helped her secure the internship.
The Mom remembers her first full-time job very well. It was after the fourth year of her studies. She had already completed most of her courses from the fifth year and was curious about consulting. She applied to Andersen Consulting (which changed its name to Accenture around that time) and got the job. But on her first day she was unpleasantly surprised. During her on-site interview everyone was dressed casually, so she assumed that the dress code in the company was informal. It turned out that her interview happened on ‘casual Friday’. Then, on the first day of the new job, she showed up grossly underdressed. The-only-person-in-a-t-shirt-in-a-conference-room kind of underdressed. It quickly turned out that the formal culture didn’t suit her at all. So she quit.
Here is the part where the first ACM ICPC winner enters the picture - Andrzej Gąsienica-Samek, a member of the 2003 world cup winning team. At that time he was a newly appointed director of an R&D department at Comarch and offered a job to The Mom. This time she liked her job. The work was as challenging as someone would expect from a programming world champion.
Then, she got her Master’s degree and another member of that same winning team, a very well-known in Poland by now, Tomek Czajka and his girlfriend recommended the Mom to Google. She wanted to work at US offices in New York or California but these opportunities didn’t pan out. She decided to relocate to Zurich instead.
The best things at Google for the Mom? Meeting new, inspiring people, brainstorming ideas and alternative solutions to problems with them and working on complex eye-opening projects on a global scale.
Now, here are some words of advice for people who want to work (and move up!) at Google. Keep in mind we are talking about the 2006 Google, so this advice most likely applies more to the companies that are currently employing several thousand people and growing the employee count 50–100% a year.
- At that time people worked long hours. Flexible work was theoretically possible, so the Mom tried working effectively and leaving early. It turned out that not working full-time was frowned upon and she didn’t get much support from her managers or colleagues who were very committed to their jobs.
- If you wanted to move up in the hierarchy, you had to see the big picture and deliberately choose to engage in projects aligned well with the long-term strategy of the company. It was easy to get stuck for people with deeply technical focus.
- Connections, networking and office politics were necessary to take part in the most interesting projects. As the Mom herself put it, “It wasn’t a paradise for nerds.”
- Sometimes Google can’t put to a good use very talented people. Especially when they don’t know themselves what they want to work on. There was one brilliant Googler who at some point improved compression algorithms. He vegetated at the company for years until he ignored his manager, focused entirely on his 20% project and eventually impressed everyone with the results.
So far this story probably sounded familiar to you if you’re a CS or math student. Here is where it changes. After 5 years at Google, a break from work and a brief episode in a medium-sized Swiss company the Mom actually became a mother. After 10 years of professional career she became a stay-at-home-mom and had to start taking care of her baby full-time around five years ago.
When I first heard this story I needed to know how the Mom was able to give up on something she was so good at and so passionate about for the last 25 years. She said that there are many factors impacting happiness. Certainly a true passion for some field is a necessary condition but might not be sufficient. Often people discover something new and exciting and then they have to pursue it after hours. She now loves taking care and teaching her kid new skills and taking long walks through a nearby forest. Pretty different from hanging out with ACM ICPC winners, huh?
Oh, and the past career of one of MIMUW’s CS professors the Mom told me about? A professional figure skater! PM me if you want to know who or want an internship!
