From Google to Roblox, how a young technician builds her dream career

The Wall Street Journal recently spoke to Ms Fletcher from her parents’ home in Atlanta, where she has been working remotely for a year. Here is his story, edited and condensed for clarity.

What attracted you to software engineering?

My father is the one I can thank for bringing me into computer engineering. In my last year of high school, I needed to take an AP class, and I was going to do AP art. He was like, “Try it out.”

I had never touched computer programming before, and I fell in love with it. It is very satisfying. You make a change, you see the exit. Due to my positive experience in this class, I decided to specialize in it.

Most of the developers I know started programming when they were 10 or 12 years old. I think back to little Andrea and I’m like, “Oh man, I wish you had Roblox! Imagine what I would have done! I’m starting to experience this as an adult now – the childish excitement of building something new and sharing it with your friends.

You majored in computer science at Georgia Tech, then moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, where you did two summer internships at Google for a full-time engineering job at Apple. How did you decide to switch to Roblox?

I quit my job [with Apple], and I was unemployed for a few months and I was looking. A recruiter contacted me. I looked at Roblox and was really interested. Never rule out cold emails from recruiters, especially if it’s an interesting business. It worked perfectly.

Why leave Apple? It seems like a place most new graduates could only dream of landing on.

It was a great job, in a big company, with great people, but the work itself was not suitable. At the end of the day, I wasn’t really excited to go to work.

What advice would you give to someone who realizes that their first job is not the right one for them?

A lot of people are forced by money or equity acquisition cliffs to stay in a company for X number of years, but my growth increased once I was in a role that I loved and that I was better. There is nothing wrong with something being out of place. Not everything is going to be the best fit. It’s not just “Is this good or bad?” It’s, “Is this good for you?” “

What’s the best part about working at Roblox?

Definitely interact with our developers because I’m a people-driven person. I like technical challenges. When I wake up I am excited to work with great people. Every time I see a game made by someone in our developer community, or something they’ve worked on, it motivates me more.

What’s your typical day?

Most of my day is spent coding, maybe two-thirds. The more engineer you are, the more time you spend on reviews [of other people’s code] and working with other people, which I really enjoy, exchanging ideas.

What’s the hardest part of your job?

Build things to stand the test of time. As Roblox evolves, this is also very important. To be a great engineer and an engineer who contributes to many projects, you have to ask yourself, “How can I build this so that everyone can enjoy it?” “

Are you really using what you learned in college?

The first two years of my college experience were extremely applicable, then the last two years most of the classes were very theoretical. But the most valuable thing I got from my computer training was learning how to learn.

One thing that a lot of people are obsessed with is, “I need to know this [programming] Language. “No, you don’t. A lot of companies have their own coding languages. If you know the principles and can learn new languages, that’s what’s really important. And I never did. Took a lesson for that. It’s like every lesson was made for that.

What about your internships during college?

I had three: one was at a network security company, then the next two were at Google.

At first, I was hired as a marketing intern. They wanted me to combine a bunch of Excel files. Someone spotted me using programming and said, “What are you doing, you’re a marketing intern!” I kind of got adopted by one of the people there and got a data set like, “You wanna try stuff with it?” It was a really fun and free form.

I got my first Google internship thanks to Grace Hopper, [an annual conference for women in computing]. The career fair there is amazing, it really helped me feel more confident in the interviews. I was part of the machine learning and artificial intelligence team. It was quite intimidating. I learned a lot, then I returned the second summer to the accessibility team.

Have the internships been decisive for your job search?

Mine definitely were. I can’t say I had a lot of results in my first internship at Google, but I learned a lot and got to see how a great company worked. My experience has certainly helped me understand what I wanted in a job.

What advice would you give to new graduates?

Keep in mind that an interview is a two-way street. You want to make sure the job is right for you. It’s easy to see a good job in a good company and say, “This is for me”. It might not be for you, and that’s okay.

If you can try the company’s products, try the product. It gives you ideas of things you might ask during the interview and things that you are passionate about.

What’s your best advice for someone who wants a job like yours?

In almost every interview I had after college, it was like “Tell me about a project you really liked” – a school project, an internship project, or a previous work project. If you were really passionate about these, that’s great. But if that doesn’t get you excited, try having a side project that you can interview and talk about endlessly.

It will make you more memorable. It’s really clear when someone is passionate about what they’ve worked on.

Write to Kathryn Dill at [email protected]