My path into software engineering,

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The deal we had with the Computer Science & Engineering Co-op Office was that they collected co-op/intern job openings and, if you landed one, you paid them a few hundred dollars per four-month term. Not cheap. And for each term you had to write a paper about something you’d learned. Homework outside of school. These were the requirements if you wanted the co-op to count towards graduating “with Co-op”.

Co-op was required for students in Software Engineering, but not for those of us in Computer Science. They also had to take a load of courses – physics, natural science, electrical engineering – that we didn’t. We had electives and throughout my major I took a variety: History of Jazz, Hip Hop Writing, Philosophy of Knowledge, Healthy Sexuality, Elementary Number Theory, Intro to Abstract Algebra. And I got to pick the specific Computer Science and Softare Engineering courses that interested me. The downside is that, in Canada, Computer Science majors are not technically Engineers. Thankfully, I don’t think that bureaucratic detail will make a difference. The demand for programmers is too high.

So, with my 2-page resume, I submitted about twenty-five job applications through the Co-op portal. And, on February 2nd of 2016, I got my first interview with a tech company. Change.org, a company from California with an office in Victoria. The interview was in the Engineering and Computer Science building on campus. I came in a blue blazer that I got on an ample employee discount from Tommy Hilfiger, where I was still working part-time. Two friendly dads interviewed me, thirty minutes each. The first one asked me to rate my JavaScript skills from one to ten. I said it was hard to put it in a number. I didn’t want to reveal that my only experience with JavaScript had been learning it outside of school, on CodeAcademy and such. He pushed gently for a number. Like.. three? he offered. Developing, I said.

The second friendly dad asked me about my SoundCloud. He made music too. The second page of my resume was paying off! I talked enthusiastically about making beats and playing guitar. Walking out of the interview, I felt good. I might actually get it. A couple days later I sent a follow-up email and a week after that, I got a reply:

Looking back, I appreciate how nice and encouraging this message was. But, at the time, I was gutted. It was already mid-February and I wasn’t sure I’d get any more interviews.

A week later, I went to the Victoria Conference Centre for Discover Tectoria, a “showcase of the Greater Victoria Tech Sector.” Our UVic Web Dev club had a booth there, so I came by to say hi, but also ended up chatting with some people from local companies, including Flytographer, a site for travelers to hire local photographers. After the weekend, I sent a follow-up email to the engineer I had chatted with, the only one in the tiny company, and set up an interview for March 2nd. A day before that interview, I got an email inviting me to another, with the CHISEL group, a Computer Human Interaction & Software Engineering Research Lab at UVic that I had applied to a month prior. When it rains it pours.

So, at 1pm on March 2nd, I interviewed with Flytographer in downtown Victoria at an office space they shared with other local startups. I showed up in my blue blazer and answered some basic programming questions and, oddly, questions about vim commands. I suspect the engineer did not have much experience interviewing programmers. Then, the founder interviewed me. She was very friendly and encouraging. Calm, sunny disposition. She said the engineer was a genius, had finished high school at fifteen years old. I met the other two employees afterwards and they were very friendly as well.

An hour or so later, I was back at the Engineering & Computer Science building on UVic campus for my interview with the research lab. I met with the professor who ran the lab and then a couple of the senior researchers quizzed me with a basic programming exercise: reversing a word. They looked pleased when I said strings were immutable. I left feeling like I had it in the bag. But I was more excited about Flytographer. I wanted to work for a tech company.

Sure enough, the next day I got an offer to be a Co-op Research Programmer at the research lab:

I had done it. I’d gotten a co-op offer. I would earn $2.5K CDN per month, which worked out to $17-$18 per hour. It was a big jump from my $10.50 at Tommy Hilfiger and, more importantly, an opportunity to get relevant work experience. But I wasn’t ready to say yes. I wanted to hear back from Flytographer.

I consulted a professor who I was friendly with and would later TA for. Take the research lab, he said. But that wasn’t the answer I wanted to hear. I went around the corner to ask the same question to someone at the co-op office. I chatted with a Placement Coordinator and she offered to reach out to Flytographer on my behalf. Then, she looked me up on her system and said Oh, you got an interview with AbeBooks. I hadn’t seen the email yet. I couldn’t believe it. I had applied several weeks before but felt like I was reaching. AbeBooks was owned by Amazon and their posted salary was $3.5K CDN per month, $1K more than what the research lab was offering and more than most of the others I’d seen on the Co-op portal. I’d assumed AbeBooks had filled their co-op positions because the job postings had disappeared. Sometimes they re-open it, the Placement Coordinator explained, if they don’t find the right person. They don’t just take the ones who interviewed the best.

My confidence was the highest it had been throughout the process. Too high, maybe.

Later that day, the Placement Coordinator forwarded a message from Flytographer:

Not promising. And yet – to my current indignation – I took the gamble. I emailed CHISEL:

(to be continued / work-in-progress)