A path to Google… From home and during the pandemic.
Working from home has been almost the only way I’ve known to work after graduating as a Systems Engineer. Being this my first post, I’ll introduce myself.
I am Cristóbal, an almost newly graduated Systems Engineer but mostly a Linux passionate. I graduated from the Aguascalientes Polytechnic University on 2020.
A couple of months before graduating, I started to work in a mexican software company as a DevOps Engineer. My first task a newly graduated and junior DevOps Engineer, was to learn new DevOps tools like SaltStack, Ansible, Kubernetes, Cloud Computing and more. Just four months later I was included in a small and internal project as a Full Stack engineer where a couple of months later I performed tech-leading tasks.
Within my first weeks on the development project, the pandemic made the whole office go to our homes and stay there for undefined time. I was afraid, I’d never used ReactJS and there was not a colleague next to me to ask if I had any question. My home was not prepared as a office, I didn’t have at least a desk where I could comfortably work but I wanted to keep improving my knowledge and skills.
Being a newly graduated engineer during the pandemic has been nothing but exciting, now I feel more productive and I have a routine to keep learning new tech stuff.
In March 2021, I started to search more opportunities and there was when I found open positions at Google. I read “Technical Solutions Engineer, Infrastructure”. I had no idea what a Technical Solutions Engineer does, but I postulated to that position and after a process of many interviews and nervous, I started to work at Google in July 2021.
When I postulated, I didn’t think that Google was going to take a look to my CV. I was just a almost a newly graduated engineer with only one year of experience on software architecture, it was impossible that a monster company like Google at least thought on take a look to that poor CV. After my first meeting with the Google recruiting team, I was very excited because they took me into account as a candidate, I was not a zero at the left for them.
After the nervousism and anxiety of the interviews, I received an offer from Google. It was my moment, Google was interested to hire me!!
The pandemic has been nothing but a challenge for almost everyone, but what is it if not exciting a challenge. The pandemic and home office tought us to be connected even if the distance is too large between us. Let’s continue learning of this pandemic and keep improving our skills!
