Anton Kovsharov, Master’s student at the Computer Technology Department
Companies: Google, Facebook
Location: Mountain View, Menlo Prk (the USA, California)
Responsibilities: mobile app’s development
Duration: six months
About the project
The firs internship that I had was from July to October. I worked on Android mobile apps, notably an app which helped developers of search system detect errors. The Google’s search system consists of many modules like voice search, search for personal data in users' accounts (photos, letters and others) — there can be errors in each of them. Our team worked on their unification so as to make it easier to detect a module with an error.
I received a position at Facebook thanks to Andrey Komarov, my friend who also interned there and recommend me for a position. Then I submitted an application, took part in an online job interview and sent my SV.
There I also focused on mobile app development — while studying at university I had some problems with it. Facebook has over six apps including Whatsapp and Instagram. We dealt with a program which coordinated the whole package of built-in apps so as to automate the updating process, so that cell phone users wouldn’t have to do it by themselves. For instance, the FB app weights 70 megabytes. If one updates it using GooglePlay, the app uses up 70 mb every time. Thanks to our program it takes about 200 kb. The difference is very significant.
It was a very useful experience, but I am not really interested in mobile app development. This process is too long and not dynamic enough.
Plans for the future
When I was a freshman I wanted to work at Google’s office in Russia, which is closed now. As of now, I like Tesla, its projects inspire me, especially the improved autopilot system. Still, I believe that launching my own business together with friends would be perfect.
Ignat Loscutov, Bachelor’s student at the Computer Technology Department
Company: Google
Location: Montreal, Canada
Responsibilities: software development for Google Chrome
Duration: 14 weeks
It was a typical process — I submitted an application, sent my CV, took part in a couple phone interviews. Then I was given a project. I had no any experience in this field except for some skills I gained during my studying. I am very glad that now I’ve got this internship experience.
Google’s office in Montreal is quite small — less than 100 people work there. Some 90 people have a full-time job while others are interns. My internship program started with a so-called orientation week, which took place in Mountain View. Then I moved to Montreal. My coordinator, Christopher Hamilton, was a good coach — he gave me relevant tasks and taught me a lot.
About the project
I worked on Chrome browser improvement. For instance, we have a channel with stable browser builds and those which are still under development. We wanted to understand its behavior when users work with the browser — if it fails, we have to get the information about errors and understand what’s wrong.
It works like this: users download a beta build to test it. On the one hand, it gives an opportunity to get more information about its failures and errors. On the other hand, we can understand what we have to work on.
It is essentially that any version of any browser has errors. The reason is very simple: there are no faultless processes and completely perfect coders. Nobody is perfect!
About accommodation
Montreal is a very beautiful city, sometimes its weather looks like St. Petersburg’s. But from time to time, I wanted to stay there. One of the benefits is that Google pays its employees so called relocation bonus, a sum of money which is enough to rent apartments.
Ruslan Tkhakokhov, junior student at the the Computer Technology Department.
Company: Google
Location: Boston, USA
Responsibilities: software development for Google Play
Duration: 12 weeks
I read a blog of a programmer from Belarus who moved to California. One day I sent her my CV and she recommended me as a candidate for a position at Google. This is how I joined the Google Play team!
Thankfully my small team consisted of young specialists who managed to solve any task extremely fast. The target of my first project was to screen movies' ratings at Rotten Tomatoes to Google Play. When one clicked a movie’s rating, reviews and opinions were to appear. It took me a week to do that. Then, my solution was produced. That really motivated me!
My team also worked on a new option for Google Play. For instance, we have a news post. Using machine learning, an algorithm "recognizes" its main topic and then generates a new story about it, picks up all necessary information, and posts it. Unfortunately, I cannot disclose all secrets before the official release. The only thing I can add is that I dealt with servers and the Android app. My contribution to this project was in making the process of stories generation much faster.
I have a dream
Nowadays I am waiting for the second job offer from Google. If everything is ok, this summer I will know the program of a summer internship in details.
I really want to work at Apple. Google, for instance, doesn’t check your skills — you just have to show a high level of coding. Apple looks for specialists with specific skills to work on particular projects. I think that my internships at Google help me create a background for my future career.
