Il a dit - He said it
VIGNESH.V (M.Sc Theoretical Computer Science, 2007-2012), shares with us his experience as a student from PSG Tech who is now employed at Google. Apart from all things Google, Vignesh also enjoys football and blogging. Excerpts from an interview:
Q. An employee in Google! How does it feel?
It feels great to be at Google. No matter how smart you think you are, when you end up in a place like Google you are going to feel like an idiot because everybody else around you are way smarter. It’s definitely a privilege to work alongside such a crop of people. It gives me indescribable happiness in seeing my work touch millions of users almost instantly.
Q. Was it an all-time dream to get placed in Google or did it develop as life passed by?
I wouldn’t say life long, but it has been a part of my dreams ever since I was exposed to computers. I used to have a photo album in Orkut titled “my dream workplace” which had pictures of the Google campus in Mountain View and now, to actually be here is a blessing. I feel really lucky, as it is not every day that one gets the chance to work with people like Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Prabhakar Raghavan, Matt Cutts, Guido van Rossum, Joshua Bloch and Robert Love.
Q. How was the journey to get there?
The journey to get here was ‘a dream come true’. Even though I had dreamed of it before, I never actually thought it would come to fruition. I’ve been really lucky to be surrounded by the right group of people who have always supported me. From the time I mailed my resume till the time I received my acceptance letter, it was a rollercoaster ride and I have never regretted a single moment of that ride.
Q. It's a dream for many of us to get placed in Google. A word of advice, and a few pointers for the students.
In my opinion, nobody gets a job at Google (or any other top company) by just preparing for the interview. The process happens over a period of few years where you go from learning the fundamentals to understanding the intricate details of various aspects of computer science. Not to mention, your work on various projects that involve solving real world problems. As clichéd as it might sound, the following statement is actually true: Learn to acquire knowledge and not to get a job. If you do the former, the latter will fall in its place. Curiosity is the only thing that differentiates the extraordinary from the ordinary.
To be more concrete, one of the best advices I ever got when I was a student was to contribute to Open Source Software. Imagine writing a piece of code to Mozilla Firefox and getting it accepted. You can literally achieve that as a student and it would speak way more about you than your grade point average when somebody from a company is looking at your profile. I’d be glad to help anybody who is interested.
Q. Your days at PSG Tech.
Everything that happened during those five years in college (education, bonding, fun etc.) pretty much defines who I am right now. Starting from the orientation talk on my very first day, to the last hour of class that I attended and the last exam I wrote in my 5th year, I thoroughly enjoyed every single moment. The DOMCA (Department of Mathematics and Computer Application) faculties are simply amazing. Their willingness to learn and their willingness to teach us what we want rather than just teaching us what’s prescribed in the syllabus really helped us out. Every person who is at DOMCA right now, or who are going to be a part of this wonderful place, rejoice it. Your sophisticated office cubes can never match the TCS Lab. Your super duper fast multi core giant machine in your office can never beat the fun offered by those computers in the CC. I would definitely describe my 5 years at PSG Tech as 5 of the best years of my life.
Q. Your plans for the future.
Three years ago, I honestly had no idea where California was (even in the map). Yet, here I am today. So I kind of stopped planning stuff for the future as it almost always seems to take a dramatic twist.
To get to know more about Vignesh’s life, do visit his blog, Je L’ai Dit (I said it). The Bridge wishes Vignesh a good luck on all his future endeavors.
