Student Voices: Gone Googling

« Washington Engineer - August 2006

UW computer grads fill ranks at Google, other major companies

: Eleven members of the UW's "Google contingent" at the Mountain View, Calif., location pal around during an alumni event last year. Google is among top tech companies that regularly turn to the UW for computer science grads to fill their ranks.

• Watch a video featuring Erin Earl
• See another UW grad who works at Google
• Get the perspective of a third Husky Googler

With multiple bachelor’s degrees in music, piano and computer science, Erin Earl had a hard decision to make when she graduated from the UW in 2003.

Initially, she opted for music and started graduate school, but it didn’t seem right. So she got in touch with her friends in the Department of Computer Science & Engineering to discuss job options.

The next thing she knew, Google made an offer and she became the latest member of a growing contingent of UW grads to join one of the world’s leading Internet companies.

“It’s been great,” said Earl, now 21 and a software engineer who works at Google’s Mountain View, Calif., location on features that apply to cell phones. “There is a big group of us from the UW that graduated about the same time and we all hang out together.”

Such a large Husky presence is the sign of a satisfied customer, according to Ed Lazowska, Bill and Melinda Gates Chair in Computer Science & Engineering at the UW.

“UW Computer Science & Engineering has more than 50 alums at Google now,” Lazowska said. “They work at Google facilities all over the country – in Kirkland, in Mountain View, Calif., and in New York City. They represent all degree levels.”

And Google isn’t the only industry leader to take note of UW grads.

“We’re a top supplier to all the top companies,” he added. “In just this past year we have sent more than a dozen students each to Microsoft, to Amazon.com and to Google. In addition, of course, a number of our students every year go on to the top graduate schools in the nation.”

It’s a relationship that the companies, including Google, want to maintain. In a visit to the UW campus last year, Google CEO Eric Schmidt told students that he wanted them to consider a career at his company.

“We’re working on making sure we get the very best and the brightest,” Schmidt said. “And this is one of the three or four universities where we find them.”