Okay, It's life.

But everyone, uh, my name is like a on I'm your hosts at Siesta Joe on today.

We have our first lifestream ever on.

We have a great guest with us today.

Ethan Chance.

Say hi to everyone.

Ethan.

Hello.

Nicey jewel.

Okay, so, uh, Ethan is a recent graduate from UC San Diego, which is University of California, San Diego with a computer science degree on.

He interned at Google in Mountain View, California as well.

It's okay.

It also intern at a few other companies.

As a software engineer, he specializes in full SEC development.

Today's format is gonna be first of all, 30 minutes of interview where I'm gonna ask Jason about things like, how did he get study with programming on what was his job experience?

Like a Google on?

Well, what's his expense?

Like as an intern there?

Once he was there on what's there?

Anything he didn't like about working at Google.

And then we're gonna do a 15 minutes off life audience Q and a session, so send questions in the top box.

So ask, you know, Eason or me anything you want ask in that session.

So Let's get started.

Ethan, how did you get started with programming in the first place?

Yeah.

So we got start with programming.

Was I guess I did my first sort of real technical internship with a family friend.

And this family friend was starting this start up, and he needed people to work on his job application.

So at the time, I didn't actually know any programming.

So I basically spent 21 week before this internship, I looked at some job editorials, and I did all of them and I just start programming.

And along the way, I ran to a lot of trouble.

Was like understanding dip different Travis constructs like, oh, how to use a loop or how to use if then else.

Um but then my boss basically helped me through the process because it was still a very small company.

So I got a really good sense of how everything worked and a lot of mentoring trip experience.

You can go ahead.

Okay, s So you say you prepared for your first, you know, engineering job for a week.

And that was that was a job where used to java.

Do you think that one week was enough to prepare yourself for them.

So I think preparation is kind of like a difficult way difficult thing to define, because I think it was enough for that job.

But at the time of starting, I felt like I was definitely not prepared.

There's so many things that I was just so overwhelmed.

But once I started doing it once I started getting into the flow of doing my job, I found that I was pretty much repaired.

So it's more about getting to a level where you can understand the language and then just starting it and diving right in.

Okay.

Sounds good, eh?

So let's ah, sort of dive ahead and, you know, talk about what happened since then.

So after that, you decided to, you know, study computer science.

You see, at UC San Diego, and then you had some experience, you know, doing more internships before working at Google Anistan.

So yes stuff.

So what was your experience like prior to working at Google?

Right, so that was very interesting, because I got to work in a lot of different size companies.

The 1st 1 I worked out was this company in San Francisco.

And they were about, I'd say 20 people at the time, maybe 10 engineers.

So being there, I learned a lot because I was treated like a full time engineer, and I got a lot of opportunity to have a bunch of ownership over the code.

But it was also really scary because I had never done about development.

And it was primarily a what development job.

So I had to learn a lot of new things on the job, and it was a really good growing experience.

And other experiences include interning at a very small company that was only like three people big and then interning at, like, a more medium sized company that was maybe 200 or 300 people.

Okay, that's perfect.

So you had a lot of experience working at different companies.

And then when you interviewed at Google, what was your interview experience like?

They're on What kind of you know, what kinds of questions did they ask you?

Right.

So with Google in particular, they tend to ask two types of overall questions.

One is all rhythms and want to design.

So with algorithms, they expected to sort of solve this problem, this input output problem in an efficient manner and what they're looking for here is sort of your thought process as well.

So basically, how you reason about the problem, where your assumptions and how you go about making a solution to the problem.

Where's design is slightly different in that it still explores your reasoning and problem solving.

But I expect you to make intelligent tradeoff.

So basically say you're making a server.

Do you want to optimize for Leighton see, or throughput and basically testing on what considerations you're making design.

Okay, so I think for the algorithms part, um, you know, for for those who are not from there, an example of an algorithm question would be sitting like You have a string or you have a list or you have an array and then you need to reverse it, using something some kind of function.

That's a very simple version off.

You know, the kinds of questions that tend to ask that tend to be asked that Google great on.

Uh, I'm kind of curious about the design part because I feel like there aren't too many resources for preparing for that type of questions.

So how did you prepare for that part?

Honestly, it's pretty difficult, I think, the best way to repair for its 22 internships.

Because internships are where you actually have to make those important design decisions.

So seeing those first hand and even seeing other engineers doing those decisions will help you form an idea of what you should be choosing for in your design.

Mmm.

Okay.

On da Let's just go ahead, you know, to thio like a later point in the timeline.

So after getting through that interview, uh, you started working in Monte, because when you're correct, right.

So what was your experience like there?

Um So my experience in Mountain View was everyone.

There was super nice.

And it was just a really nice environment to work in.

Lots of great perks, Really good, like sense of interior design and just a really nice aura.

But it was a really huge campus.

It was even bigger than my college UCSD s.

So it was pretty intimidating.

Um, but the team there was really nice because basically, even though there's a lot of people, your team is still pretty small.

So you still get that sense of working together in a small community.

Nice on.

What were you working on there?

So there I was, working on an aspect of Google opinion rewards.

So they basically send out surveys and you get some money for doing these surveys.

And my job was to make a piece of technology that would render the cards in Google now into HTML so they could be displayed inside the surveys.

You say cars in Google now?

Yes, Gigolo now.

So it used to be called Google now, but now it's like called the feed or something.

But basically, they're these material design cars that have, like, the weather or some news, and then you want to render them into HTML, so they're compatible with other display more maps.

Okay, Sounds good on, uh, after that you started.

I guess maybe one or two years later, you started working at Google in Tokyo, huh?

Yeah.

What was your experience there?

And how did that compare to your experience in month of you?

Right, So my experience in typical was pretty similar to Mountain View in terms of the overall vibe that I got the food was much better there.

I'll give him that.

But everyone there spoke English, so it was really nice.

And I think the major difference is a team that I was with because on Mountain View, I was on this team that was focused on engineering and quality.

But in Tokyo, I was on a research team, so I primarily did very experimental stuff.

Okay, Um, on da Was there anything interesting?

You're experienced in Tokyo, like, due to cultural differences because you grew up in California crap, right?

Yeah.

Yes.

So that was a very interesting experience, and I think the first time when the Tokyo was before interning there.

But at that time, I got a lot of culture shock because everyone there was super polite, unlike in America, where sometimes people can be kind of rude and there's no tipping, which was very kind of up putting at first, but it was a really nice future of Japan I enjoy now, And the public transit there is actually really, really good.

So I'm very pleasantly surprised about that.

Um, probably the most.

I guess embarrassing thing, though, is that they use honorifics in Japan, so they use like, sawn or Shawn or whatever sama and they basically upend these phrases to the end of your name's indicates your status.

Yes.

Like so you know, I'm deafness.

And, uh, like, as some of you don't.

So, son and China is sort of like the word Mr in English.

Yes.

So, basically, normally at the calls, like, you know, Ethan Chan in English, right.

But strangely enough, like when you translate my name to Japanese, it's east on John.

And then, like, the John is similar to the Sean suffix honorific and in the Sun is also the similar to the sun honorifics.

So people got very confused when I introduced myself because I'd be introducing myself, but using those honorifics, and it's kind of weird to do that to yourself.

All right.

So are you going, Mr Ethan?

Yeah.

So I guess Ethan Chang, like your whole name is sort of like Mr Visser E.

Yeah, Exactly.

Yeah.

Um, on da.

Why did you choose?

Oh, you know, the Tokyo campus to work out.

Yes.

That's an excellent question.

And it really stems back to against my experience.

They're studying abroad, because when I studied abroad there, I was just trying it out and seeing if I like Tokyo and it turns out that I really loved working there and living there because I did a little short internship there as well.

So that experience really convinced me that I want to work there.

And that's my major career goal is to work in Tokyo.

Nice on S O.

You know, based on the experience you had both in Montana, California and Tokyo, Was there anything that was surprising to you?

You know, something that you expected would happen on, you know, didn't happen.

Orefice Parsa, right.

So I guess one thing I didn't really think about that much about it.

But when I went to go to work, um, I sort of felt like I was working on a very small part of a very small part of a Billy big machine.

So a lot of the stuff that I was working I wouldn't really be seeing, and I kind of expected that.

But when I started actually working on it, it really magnified.

And I realized how little my stuff will be seen by the average user.

So in that sense, I'm kind of craving and more that feeling.

So that's why I'm still applying to stars, for example.

But Google is still a really excellent place to work.

So I would like to apply there as well and hopefully get it.

Return offer.

Yes, that's good.

So actually, they I can't relate to that, because the experience I had Google when I was working at Google him when she was kind of similar because I was.

So I was working on this tool that Google chrome developers would use to develop Google chrome.

So I was, you know, I felt like I was, like, pushing somebody else to push somebody else to, like, actually make a difference to you.

Yeah, exactly.

That's how you felt, too.

Yeah, so I guess Ah, you know the policy.

If so, we're like the people there, and the projects were kind of interesting, but I guess you wish, you know, you would be.

And I would like you being able to, like, have more impact all the use of Stackley, right?

Yeah, that's how I feel.

Exactly.

Yeah, I guess, But, you know, that's something that's kind of common in large companies.

Figures, you know, there are so many people working there and so many projects to work on there, huh?

All right.

Okay.

So I think I want to switch the gears a little bit here on, I'm gonna talk about, like how we got connected.

So, you know, when you message me, I didn't know I didn't know you before on I get a lot of messages recently because my YouTube channel started growing on.

It's nice, but I get, like, too many messages, basically to reply to everything.

But when I got your message, I thought it was really, you know, well written.

And that's why I wanted to respond to you s o.

I asked, Do like before the interview.

If it's okay for me to show your message to everyone and you said yes.

So I'm gonna show it to everyone here, you know, just part of it.

So you said something along the lines off, so I'm looking for advice in my career.

And then you said, I know this is a really long message, so don't feel pressured to reply in some way or anything.

And then you said choosing where the work is a huge decision for me, so I could use all the perspective I can get on what I found Really nice about this message was the fact that you say, you know, so don't feel pressured to reply in some way or anything.

And I felt like I would sort of, you know, off the hook on I finally really nice because I felt like you sort of understood where I was.

You know?