Presenter #1: Kathyleen Beveridge

Worked at HP Inc, Qualcomm, and Thermo Fisher Scientific. Company Mission Statements:

  • HP Inc: Create technology that makes life better for everyone, every where
  • Qualcomm: Inventing the tech the world loves
  • Thermo Fisher Scientific: Enable our customers to make the world healthier, cleaner and safer

Thermo Fisher:

  • World leader in serving science
  • More than 100,000 employees
  • 7,000 R&D scientists/engineers
  • $1.5B invested in R&D
  • $40B in revenue

Qualities of a good engineer:

  • Can listen
  • Can understand the requirements
  • Can use that understanding to make technology solve the requirement
  • Able to explain their process

Presenter #2: Kris Porter

Education

  • Attended Livermore High School alum
  • Enrolled at UCLA for Electrical Engineering (masters degree)
  • Master’s Degree in Electrical Engineering from Cal State LA (Communications Systems)
  • CCNA training
  • Machine Learning and Deep Learning (Qualcomm)
  • Python (Udemy)
  • Data Structures, Algorithms and System Design
  • Twitter University

Research

  • Center for Embedded Networked Sensors(NIMS)
  • Introduced the linux Operating System, Software Development Life Cycle

Time Line

  • 2010 - Systems Engineer at a Start up, GPM (Email marketing automation)
  • 2012 - NBC Universal, Streaming media Infrastructures (Streaming Olympics)
  • 2014 - Intro to DevOps, transition to Qualcomm with Mr. Mortensen
  • 2021 - Working at Twitter

Some projects he worked on:

  • Streaming media Infrastructure for the 2012 Olympic Games at NBC Universal
  • Analytics Infrastructure projects (locationSmart, Qualcomm)
  • Twitter Projects
    • New DataCenter Deployment
    • Migrating HomeTimeline to GraphQL

Class Discussion

Agile methodology (tech perspective):

  • Different companies have their own versions of Agile
  • Different companies use it based on their needs for their goals
  • For example, Qualcomm, had groups of 150 engineers
  • Used roadmaps and flowcharts to coordinate with other engineers

Greatest skill an engineer or someone hoping for a career in tech:

  • Perseverance and the drive/passion to learn
  • Adapt and learn from your mistakes
  • Minimize your distractions and maintain a good balance

Ways that learning code would help in other sectors?

  • Coding can teach skills and methods you can use to tackle other problems

The most important skill that you have is continuous learning.

Summary

Kathyleen Beveridge and Kris Porter are two computer scientists who used to work at Qualcomm with Mr. Mortensen. They talked about their experiences and the projects they’ve worked on. They gave some recommendations on how to be a better Computer Scientist. They ended the seminar with a few questions from the audience.

Takeaways

Today I learned that learning to code should not be your first priority. Your first priority is to be able to learn and grow from your mistakes. You have to be able to adapt and be flexible. Kathyleen Beveridge proved that you can adapt and be flexible when she transitioned from a job as a Computer Scientist to a job at a Biology based company. I think most of the lessons talked about during the lecture can be applied to many things in life.