Getting the Google Apprenticeship
...we did it boys!
I know I fell off and stopped blogging about my journey, and that’s on me. I honestly felt that I didn’t have anything worth sharing happen to me. I started this blog shortly after one of my close friends from college suggest I do a bootcamp to successfully transition over to the tech industry. For those that don’t know me, I’m a lazy person. Not in the standard sense, but more like I don’t bother doing something unless I do it all the way. Being a broke high school teacher at the time the feat of transitioning careers seemed like a mountain of work to commit to. I made a pact with myself that if I was to go down this path, I’d get a job in the field within a year, before I turn 30. Since graduating six months ago, a lot has happened. I thought that this would be a good time to log some of the adventures I’ve had.
I recently drove accross the country with my girlfriend and my dog and all our stuff in a van. You can read more about triphere
I had decided that after maxing out my credit cards by purchasing this bootcamp, and pretty much running the well dry paying rent, it was finally time to put my skills to the test and see if I could land a tech job out here in California. I was officially in between jobs and applied to hundreds of positions. The same friend who suggested I join the bootcamp, sent me a link to the Google Apprenticeship Program.
It was quite the hail mary but I went for it, expecting it to go absolutely nowhere. Although I didn’t expect much, I knew somewhere deep down inside I wanted to make it to Google somehow. Remember that innate laziness I mentioned earlier? Since I had already put myself down this path, I wanted to take it all the way, or else what was the point of putting so many hours in?
I got called back about three months later and did two virtual interviews (one behaviorial and one technical) three weeks after that and BAM!!
I’m proud to say that as of September 12th (only 6 days before I turned 30) your boy became an Apprentice Software Engineer at Google! I was definitely indenial for a bit. I don’t mean this in a self loathing type of way but “good things” don’t usually happen to me, so when I got the call I didn’t even know how to react for a few days.
Although its been a few months, we were put through about 9 weeks of onboarding. Our cohort is finally primed and ready to work alongside our teams at Google. It feels like a whole new “first day” vibe. My work is finally starting to align with what I’m actually going to be doing for the company now. This rotation I’m going to be starting with the Android Wallet Integration Team .
My plan so far is to get familiar with Android archecture by developing an app in Android Studio. You can check out my Reminder App here. My job on the team will have me building out tests to automate some of the wallet features for the team. I’m also currently in the process of picking up Java and Kotlin, and what better way to pick up a language then create something with it. Although Kotlin is supposed to be the primary language used for Android Dev, my team wants me well versed in Java.
I had the opportunity recently to actually travel to the San Francisco Office! It was my first time on a Google Campus and to say that it was inspirational would be a massive understatement. I was really hoping to gain some perspective from it, understand how life is as a developer. And homies, life at the end of this Google colored rainbow is fucking DOPE! The food was awesome, the views were awesome, and the workspaces were beyond AWESOME! I’m not gonna lie I felt like I had everything I needed to just be productive. They had NAP pods for crying out loud!! It was just really cool. Coming onto an actual campus really made this apprenticeship feel more legit. Working remotely it’s sometimes hard to get the level closure that Google’s advertised to be about.
I’m really excited to see where this opportunity takes me. It’s everything I really needed to get into this field. The apprenticeship gives me an environment to do the level of work expected by the industry with supervision and a saftey net. I’m going to try my best and make the most of this opportunity by exploring as much as I can. Will also try to be more consistent with keeping you guys updated! I plan on going into the office for the first time next week, hopefully will have some more thoughts to report after.
