Kathyleen Beveridge

1) Background:

MBA, USC
BS in Finance, Santa Clara University
Switched from finance to high tech in 2005
Sr. Director of Commercial and Marketing Operations (Thermo Fisher Scientific)
Director of Commercial Excellence (Thermo Fisher Scientific)
Used databases and data science for predictions on when and where to sell specific products
Mission Statements
HP Inc: Create technology that makes life better for everyone, everywhere
Qualcomm: Investing tech that the world loves
Thermo Fisher Scientific: Enable our customers to make the world healthier, cleaner, and safer
Companies that create products, thus, their mission statements are based upon satisfying and meeting the needs of their customers

2) Conclusion:

Worked for companies that had a macro impact on the lives of their users/customers
“No matter what you choose to do…[you] can make an impact on the world.”
Agile Methodology:
Short sprints to plan out work in short increments/ in a matter of a few months.

Kris Porter

1) Background:

UCLA, Electrical engineering
Master’s in electrical engineering, Cal State LA
Software Engineer - SRE
Infrastructure Engineer
Research
Center for Embedded Networked Sensors
Networked Info Mechanical Systems NIMS
Introduced to Linux Operating System, Software Development Life Cycle

2) Career:

Worked with virtual servers, data collection, and automation
Systems Engineer at GPM (startup)
Infrastructure at NBC Universal, Streaming media
DevOps at Qualcomm - Machine learning and deep learning, used Python libraries and data to determine when to archive and delete repositories on GitLab
Twitter - APIs and data centers, migrating HomeTimeline to GraphQL
Twitter University (formal training on the company’s systems, tools, management, etc.)
Currently at Mystem Labs
Agile Methodology:
Group of 150 engineers that interacted and planned together through the use of meetings - developed a road map of projects.

Conclusion Question:

1) What are some of the most important skills for the tech industry?

Mr. Porter

“Learning how to learn” - ie. programming languages, infrastructures, etc. Stay resilient when going into/finding work, stay confident

Mrs. Beveridge

Continuous learning
Be adaptive
Have the ability to listen to requirements and translate your work into how technology can serve those needs
Be prepared for interviews

Key Takeaways

Overall, I really enjoyed the CompSci / Technical Business panel, as it was quite informative. Hearing from the perspectives of Mrs. Beveridge and Mr. Porter helped to open my eyes for a career in tech. I learned about the many types of jobs within the field of computer science, as well as the importance of working in teams; holding meetings, such as the ones we have with our Scrum Teams can help prepare us for our real-world jobs. From Mrs. Beveridge's presentation, I found it interesting that though our work may seem small in a field of many, in her own words, “No matter what you choose to do…[you] can make an impact on the world.” Mr. Porter opened up about his career working in infrastructure and deep learning at companies such as NBC Universal and Qualcomm - it was quite interesting to learn about many of his experiences. From his slides, I learned about continuous learning and that to help yourself succeed in the field of computer science, you must always be "learning how to learn," whether it be a new system, tool, etc. In conclusion, this panel was very interesting and I believe that I gained a lot of resourceful knowledge that I can apply and use in the classroom and beyond.